The British prime minister embraced a more divisive profile, casting himself as a disrupter and scrapping part of the High Speed 2 line that predecessors had championed.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain, taking the stage at his first Conservative Party conference as leader on Wednesday, sought to cast himself as a change agent who would rebuild his economically depleted country.
But in one change that swiftly undercut his claim to be a builder, Mr. Sunak said he would pull the plug on a key part of an ambitious high-speed rail project that had been a cornerstone of his party’s promises to spread prosperity to the north of England.
David Cameron, the former Conservative prime minister who championed HS2 as an “engine for growth” in 2013, wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that Mr. Sunak’s decision was “the wrong one,” adding, “In years to come I suspect many will look back at today’s announcement and wonder how this once-in-a-generation opportunity was lost.”
An unrepentant Ms. Truss turned up to defend her brief period in Downing Street to an adoring audience, while Suella Braverman, the home secretary, delivered a fiery speech on immigration that served as a kind of audition for party leader, should the Tories lose the general election, as polls suggest they will.
Mr. Sunak appears to have calculated that he needs to offer a new vision for Britain, partly to dispel the charge of the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, that he was “inaction man.”
Seeming to acknowledge the voter fatigue with the Conservatives that has been repeatedly shown in polls, Mr. Sunak attempted an almost impossible feat: to position himself, the leader of the governing party, as the disrupter the country needed.
The original article contains 1,110 words, the summary contains 260 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain, taking the stage at his first Conservative Party conference as leader on Wednesday, sought to cast himself as a change agent who would rebuild his economically depleted country.
But in one change that swiftly undercut his claim to be a builder, Mr. Sunak said he would pull the plug on a key part of an ambitious high-speed rail project that had been a cornerstone of his party’s promises to spread prosperity to the north of England.
David Cameron, the former Conservative prime minister who championed HS2 as an “engine for growth” in 2013, wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that Mr. Sunak’s decision was “the wrong one,” adding, “In years to come I suspect many will look back at today’s announcement and wonder how this once-in-a-generation opportunity was lost.”
An unrepentant Ms. Truss turned up to defend her brief period in Downing Street to an adoring audience, while Suella Braverman, the home secretary, delivered a fiery speech on immigration that served as a kind of audition for party leader, should the Tories lose the general election, as polls suggest they will.
Mr. Sunak appears to have calculated that he needs to offer a new vision for Britain, partly to dispel the charge of the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, that he was “inaction man.”
Seeming to acknowledge the voter fatigue with the Conservatives that has been repeatedly shown in polls, Mr. Sunak attempted an almost impossible feat: to position himself, the leader of the governing party, as the disrupter the country needed.
The original article contains 1,110 words, the summary contains 260 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!