Rishi Sunak Gears Up, Makes Unexpected Moves Ahead of UK PM Race

Rishi Sunak is making some unexpected moves through his campaign to get elected as Conservative Party leader and therefore Prime Minister. The newest surprise is to have taken his family with him for the campaign in Grantham, the birth town of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

A Day Out: He appeared with his wife Akshata Murthy and daughters Krishna and Anoushka. He later backed that appearance with pictures with his family on the campaign trail posted on Instagram. This is all unique, the first we have seen of Rishi Sunak and his family in public.

A Planned Move: The move was of course planned as symbolic rather than a spontaneous appearance. It was a picture of his belief in family values that Thatcher spoke so often of as quintessential Conservative values. The message was that past his appearance he is Tory at heart and at home. It will be the hope of many that Sunak is seen by party members for his value more than for his appearance.

Rishi Sunak is set to face rival Liz Truss in a televised debate on Monday evening, and then again on Tuesday. These debates are his best bet. He is a more skilled speaker, and he knows what he’s talking about in the economy. It will be his hope that he can come across so much more convincingly than Truss as to erase the advantage she has over him that opinion polls suggest and that he acknowledges.

Underlying that plan is optimism that Conservative voters can look past his color at the content of his character as Martin Luther King had hoped of the Americans. The optimism is that Britain is ready for a Rishi moment just as the US was for its Obama moment. It takes a great deal of optimism to hope that a majority of Conservative Party members are prepared to make the leap into a world other than they have known and would like to see.

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