A debilitating week for Treasury-based luxury casualwear influencer Rishi Sunak. He used to seem invincible; now he’s the pocket Samson who’s just taken a massive haircut courtesy of his wife. I know Rishi wants to be prime minister and stuff, but it’s increasingly difficult to imagine how the mega-rich chancellor would persuade ordinary British people to do difficult things. Mate – you can’t even persuade your own wife to pay you tax.
But before I get accused of being a sexist by … hang on, let me get my lorgnette … James Cleverly, we’d better have a recap of developing events, which now include a possible US green card controversy. Initially believed to be watching his political oxidisation on Pacific time, the chancellor is in fact on these shores. I hear Lynton Crosby has banned Easter getaways, meaning Sunak will have to unwind in one of his houses in this country, as opposed to the high-end Santa Monica apartment he owns in a complex that includes a pet spa.
Anyway, he has granted a hotly defensive exclusive interview to the Sun, which runs under the apoplectic banner LAY OFF MY MISSUS. And I think you’ll agree that headline truly captures the way Rishi Sunak speaks. This, quite simply, is a guy who is as at-home screaming a warning out of a van window as he is indulging in a desultory browse of Mr Porter’s fine knits, his cursor hovering briefly over a £495 smoke-blue James Perse cashmere hoodie before the window is closed in listless pique. There are some injustices even a knitwear purchase can’t alleviate. Even so, I think the headline could have been punchier. I’d have gone with PAY TAX? IN THIS ECONOMY?!
As for the meat of the interview, I hugely enjoyed the implication that the £30,000 annual flat fee required
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