Rishi Sunak’s bid to the prime minister has been recognised for being particularly slick throughout his campaign – up until today.
The former chancellor has come out on top of both Conservative leadership ballots this week, and seems to be the frontrunner – at least among MPs – to take Boris Johnson’s place in No.10.
So it was particularly surprising that during a leadership hustings hosted by Conservative Home on Friday, a large spelling error on one of his campaign signs was visible.
Below a giant QR code was the caption: “Scan me to join the campiaign [sic].”
It’s especially surprising as Sunak’s campaign has been so glossy since its launch, unlike his main competitor Penny Mordaunt, who had complaints about her launch video.
Sunak has even been accused of registering his official website Ready4Rishi.com back in December, although it was actually registered on July 6 according to public records. That’s the day after he quit as chancellor and the day before Johnson resigned.
Actually, a different web address was registered six months ago – Readyforrishi.com, which was snapped up on December 23, although Sunak’s team claim they were not responsible for that, according to The Guardian. This URL now redirects to Sunak’s official Ready4Rishi.com page.
Spelling mistakes aside, Sunak’s chances of winning the top job seemed to decrease after a YouGov poll found he was not the most popular candidate among the wider members of the Conservative Party.
Just 13% of the 879 members surveyed backed Sunak – meaning he was tied in third place with foreign secretary Liz Truss – compared to 27% who supported his opponent Mordaunt.
This comes despite Sunak being the second person to resign from Johnson’s cabinet last week, triggering a mass Tory exodus from his government which ultimately forced the prime minister to resign on Thursday.
Sunak has also faced criticism over his wife’s non-dom status (which did allow her to avoid paying taxes on overseas income) earlier this year, until she gave it up and started paying UK taxes.
When challenged over his multi-millionaire status on Thursday, Sunak also told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme on Thursday that he was not too rich to become prime minister.
“I don’t judge people by their bank accounts, I judge them by their character and I think people can judge me by my actions over the past couple of years,” he claimed.