Setbacks for Sunak as key elections approach 

RISHI Sunak faces his first major electoral challenge as UK prime minister on May 4, yet his government is “on the rocks” following the resignation last Friday ( April 21) of Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab.

More than half a year into his term of office, Sunak has had a very mixed start in 10 Downing Street. To be sure, he has not experienced a similar disastrous chain of events that his predecessor Liz Truss did last year which saw her prime ministership implode within 50 days.

However, the tenure of Truss is an exceptionally low baseline from which to judge Sunak’s term. In practice, this has had some “ups” but a lot of “downs” too, including the significant number of Cabinet resignations for ethics-related reasons starting with Cabinet Office minister Gavin Williamson last year and culminating (so far) with Raab last Friday.