As Sunak leaves the stage, are the Tories fair in their judgment of him?

When Rishi Sunak leaves the stage, he will know – and he has long accepted – that he will forever be remembered as the man who led the Conservatives to one of the most devastating electoral defeats in their history.

For others, he will be the man who stabbed Boris Johnson in the back. The man who was conservative in name only. The man who couldn't stop the boats. The man was fined for a party that should not have taken place.

It is a mark of him as a person that he has always taken responsibility for the electoral defeat and is not engaged in fighting the rest. He did not blame others – but others share responsibility. Indeed, his conduct and his interpretations, when he has appeared since, always incite me to smear Shakespeare:

Nothing suited his mandate as Prime Minister better than leaving it.

At this year's Conference, expecting ordinary members to express their frustration, I was surprised by the reception he received during his Sunday appearance. The entire crowd wasn't angry, they weren't listening in respectful silence, they were cheering. It was authentic.

Once again, he recognized the government's failures, its errors, but also listed the successes of 14 years of Conservative government. One myth is that he didn't have one. Don't believe the Labor hype. They believed theirs, and so far it has bitten them.

I spoke to many of the people there and the theme was much the same; that Rishi Sunak is an honest man, who did his best, admits his mistakes and worked hard. It wasn't enough. It led to a terrible defeat, but he simply didn't deserve to take all the responsibility.

If people expected to see more of him over the past four months, he is, I am told, determined not to overshadow or overwhelm in the long leadership race that ends tomorrow. He did not vote and wanted it to take place without him, on the right side of the stage – or on the left, depending on one's perception of him.

As we saw on Wednesday, he didn't hesitate to meet a Prime Minister who can't stop calling him Prime Minister.

At this week's PMQs, the good-natured banter showed two things: for all their many exchanges, Sir Keir Starmer acknowledged that Rishi Sunak is an honest man. This is a widely held opinion in Parliament. However, the camaraderie displayed also showed, contrary to popular belief, that Sunak has some political cunning about him. Something that, according to his detractors, he still lacks.

Perhaps lulled by the exchange of softballs at the start, the Labor front benches did not expect the post-budget evisceration they received from a man who had nothing to lose and something to prove. They hadn't been honest with the public and someone had to say so. There is no better person than Rishi Sunak in a furious flow.

Although I support Rachel Reeves when she tells the House of Commons that there is something important about young women seeing the first Chancellor present a Budget, the glass ceiling on her side still exists. The Conservatives gave Britain three female prime ministers and, with Sunak, the first non-white prime minister. It’s a testament to the party that it wasn’t worth the hype, but it mattered.

Budget responses are often something of a sideshow, but Sunak, who had himself been chief secretary to the Treasury and chancellor, launched a scathing attack on his successors across the aisle. He told them in no uncertain terms what a shabby deception they had played on the electorate with their gigantic tax plans, and implicitly reminded the electorate – I told you so.

As political speeches go, it was a bravura finale.

The problem is, and he knows it, that when he called the election, voters, the media and many Conservative MPs were simply not in the mood to listen to the Conservative Party, or to him.

The calculation was that after several successes such as the Windsor framework, defense spending at 2.5%, strong support for Ukraine, reducing the benefits bill, the polls just denied to change. Perhaps winning in 2024 could have been beyond the party before he entered Downing Street, but you never know.

Maybe there was an argument for moving forward, but I don't meet many conservatives who think it was the right decision. But none of us were present in the room when the discussions took place. There was a calculation, we can't know if it would have been better now, in November.

Some of the widespread criticism of Rishi Sunak is lazy.

He wasn't really conservative and had no political sense, that's the most common thing.

It is both ironic and ultimately untenable that he has been judged by many conservatives to be the most left-wing prime minister they have ever had, and by other parties as leading the most right-wing administration they have ever had. 'they have ever known.

Altar East in the soul conservative and if, under him, taxes increased and the State expanded and intervened in people's lives, it is because he participated in the fight against the first global pandemic since 70 years, and immediately after, the economic shock waves of a land war in Europe.

It is frustrating that after moving the furlough program forward, he did not simultaneously and more vigorously initiate the rollover than he would have. to have to pay. It's a failure I think he paid. However, despite all of Labour's attacks on the mini-budget, Rishi Sunak has always said that is not what he did, and he has reduced inflation more than he promised.

Another problem is that he can't understand what ordinary people think because he and his wife are rich. This is an obvious political attack but one that really doesn't correspond to any of them or their behavior, regardless of their wealth.

As Chief Secretary to the Treasury, he was known for taking a genuine interest in the people he worked with, what they cared about and what they wanted, conservative or not. He likes to talk to people and hear about them, not talk about himself. I started hearing his name around that time, when my boss at the time – who was not a conservative – met him and came away impressed.

Little man, big heart, one of his colleagues told me one day.

When he became chancellor, he took time out for coffee with a young civil servant from his former private office, to discuss their future and the possibility of helping him. It is a model that those who worked with him recognize even after he left Downing Street.

Craig, now Lord McKinley, spoke movingly in the House of Commons about how the then Prime Minister had visited him several times in hospital, but very few people knew about it. His wife opened Downing Street to schoolchildren every Friday for most of their time in the building and continues the voluntary work she began even now that she is not there.

People see what they want to see and ignore the rest.

It is true that they saw boats that he tried to stop, but they did not do so. They also forget the measures put in place this time last year, which are reducing net migration by hundreds of thousands of people. Labor haven't abandoned them yet, but I bet they're taking credit for it.

There is one criticism leveled at him that I agree with. For a man accused of taking too many helicopter rides, he found it difficult to distance himself from the minutiae of government. Too often he delved into details rather than looking at things from above.

Being Prime Minister is not a role in which you can solve all the thorny problems alone, and woe betide those who try. Perhaps out of habit from his role as Chancellor, a problem which plagued Gordon Brown – he usually went into detail, but in doing so gave the impression that he was more of a spreadsheet manager than a visionary leader.

I am aware that there will be people in the party, and comments below, who will ignore any defense of the man and return to my starting point; the leader who led the conservatives to a terrible defeat.

However, former leaders should receive a fair review. Good and bad. He would accept both. I hope that now that he is leaving the stage, he will be able to explain himself more.

I suspect that, unlike some of his predecessors, history will be more kind to his reputation than many are now.

He deserves this.