Rishi Sunak Starts Reset by Tearing Up Project Championed by Boris Johnson
- UK premier gives first speech to Tory conference as leader
- Approach hindered by his party being in power for 13 years
Rishi Sunak
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Rishi Sunak didn’t just rip up the UK’s flagship rail project on Wednesday. Desperate to be seen as an agent of change after 13 years that have made his Conservative Party deeply unpopular, he took aim at the records of Tory and Labour prime ministers dating back almost to Margaret Thatcher.
“We’ve had 30 years of a political system which incentivizes the easy decision, not the right one,” Sunak said in his hour-long keynote speech to the Conservative Party conference, his first as leader. “30 years of vested interests standing in the way of change. 30 years of rhetorical ambition which achieves little more than a short-term headline.”