'The leading authority on our contemporary prime ministers' Dominic Grieve, Guardian
The 2024 General Election was the Conservatives' worst ever defeat: their lowest vote share in modern history and smallest parliamentary contingent since 1832. As Boris Johnson's crumbling majority turned to rubble and Nigel Farage's Reform marched into the vacuum, a question hung over British politics that would once have seemed
absurd: is this the end of the Tories as an independent force?
From inheriting Liz Truss's collapsed premiership - the pound in freefall, the bond markets and Conservative Party
in revolt - through the domestic battles over the Rwanda Asylum Plan and the agenda-dominating wars in Ukraine and Gaza, to the crushing 2023 local elections, Sunak's time in Downing Street was one of unrelenting turbulence and hard choices. Could a more naturally political or commanding leader have steadied the ship?
Was Sunak ultimately sunk by the chaos he inherited, or by his own ill-fated indecision? And as Kemi Badenoch attempts to rebuild and Keir Starmer is already out the door, does any path back to power remain?
Drawing on unparalleled access to Sunak's inner circle, and exclusive interviews with Cabinet ministers and senior officials, Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton offer the definitive account of a premiership that began in crisis, and was never able to fully escape it.
