Rishi Sunak bade an emotional final goodbye to Downing Street today after leading the Tories to their worst-ever election result – with Keir Starmer waiting in the wings to take over.
Flanked by his emotional wife Akshata Murty, the outgoing Prime Minister delivered his parting statement as he prepared to head for Buckingham Palace to formally tender his resignation to the King and bring an end to 14 years of Conservative government.
The weather held off – in contrast to when he called the election back in May – as he said he was ‘sorry’ and had ‘heard the anger’ of the country and the ‘clear message’ delivered via the ballot box.
‘I have given this job my all. But you have sent a clear message, and yours is the only judgement that matters,’ he said.
‘This is a difficult day, but I leave this job honoured to have been Prime Minister of the best country in the world.’
Mr Sunak said he would resign as Tory leader once a replacement had been chosen. He also paid tribute to Sir Keir as a public servant, wishing him and his family well in their new duties.
After his short speech, the couple – not accompanied by their daughters and with Akshata carrying an umbrella – walked hand-in-hand to a waiting car and were driven away to see the King.
A statement from Buckingham Palace a short time later said: ‘The Right Honourable Rishi Sunak MP had an audience of The King this morning and tendered his resignation as Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, which His Majesty was graciously pleased to accept.’
Sir Keir is basking in a massive general election win following a brutal night for the Conservatives – but Labour’s victory is being dubbed a ‘loveless landslide’ and a ‘super meh-jority’.
With nearly all constituencies having declared their results, Labour was found to have won barely one in three votes across the UK.
Polling experts highlighted how Labour’s vote share of 33.8 per cent is likely to be less than any of Sir Tony Blair’s general election victories in 1997, 2001 or 2005.
It is even less than the 40 per cent vote share hard-left Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn secured in 2017 and lower than the 36.1 per cent David Cameron got for the Conservatives in 2010 when that year’s election ended in a hung parliament.
Rishi Sunak talks about the ‘anger’ of the public and the ‘clear message’ of the ballot. Some people will be relieved that the Conservatives are out of power now, many will not, who knows what goes on in people’s heads these days, but it doesn’t matter because whoever is in power, they all give you false promises, and many people don’t even listen to them anymore.
We are just here to pay the bills so that those in power can squander it and line their own pockets – occasionally they might throw us a few breadcrumbs, but that’s about it!
None of them cares about us, and their weasel words are just from a script, nothing more. A new party is moving into No 10 Downing Street. The mask might have changed, but the face behind it remains the same.
The entry of Labour into power is not a change of administration; rather, it is a change of middle management, and nothing will change.
Some would say that Rishi Sunak inherited a lot of problems from the fallout from Party Gate (the Liz Truss mess), but we could also say the same for old Boris Johnson with the pandemic (if you can’t take the heat, then stay out of the fire!)
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