Rishi Sunak’s net personal wealth is estimated at £730m. As both prime minister (now) and chancellor (recently), he has been in a better position than most to change the lot of British forces and veterans, by properly funding the NHS, the welfare state, social housing and so on.
Given all this, and given that until a few days ago he was claiming the economic crisis was far too serious to allow him to attend a conference aimed at tackling catastrophic climate change, one has to ask: might there be something ever so slightly performative about the stunt he pulled on Thursday morning (3 November), when he was to be found selling paper poppies in Westminster Tube station to raise money for the Royal British Legion? Of course, gestures can matter in politics – objectionable as his premiership was in every other sense, Boris Johnson’s first visit to Kyiv clearly genuinely meant something to the people of Ukraine. But I think it’s possible that “lack of poppy awareness” is not the main problem facing veterans today.
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