Rishi Sunak has made history by becoming the first British Indian, and person of South Asian heritage, to be sworn in as  Britain’s current prime minister .

It was the “revolving door” of Tory politics that got the Oxford-educated MP and former Chancellor of the Exchequer into 10 Downing Street.

 Liz Truss had entered and exited via the same door barely weeks earlier.

At 42, Sunak is Britain’s youngest prime minister in 200 years.

Sunak himself kept from chest-thumping while giving his sombre, six-minute speech outside the prime minister’s residence on October 25, which suggested he was mindful of the optics of the moment.

 He mounted the steps of history without his family in tow, underlining the fact that he was taking the reins of a country mired in political and economic crises, when Brand Britain stood battered in the eyes of the world.

Sunak’s avowed mission is to fulfil the Tory mandate of 2019, which Boris Johnson attempted unsuccessfully to do before him.

And while opinion polls suggest 63 per cent of the general public, as well as the opposition Labour, Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party (SNP), would like to see a  general election sooner rather than later, the Conservative Party with Sunak at the helm is in no hurry to oblige them, arguing that they are operating squarely within the ambit of a parliamentary democracy that elects parties (rather than prime ministers).

Sunak’s ministerial appointments prioritise stability and continuity, cutting a swathe across the Conservative Party’s factions and aiming to unite a fractious party, though Labour has called it “more of the same.”

James Cleverly has returned as the foreign secretary, while Jeremy Hunt remains chancellor of the exchequer which has led to amused speculation that Sunak, who was the chancellor before him, will be looking over the shoulder of his current appointee to the same role.

However, the reappointment of Suella Braverman as the home secretary has raised eyebrows after she had been previously sacked for breaching ministerial rules when she sent an official document to a fellow MP from her personal email.

The controversy around the home secretary has put a question mark over Sunak’s claims to “integrity, professionalism and accountability” in his cabinet choices.

On the international front, Sunak’s China policy will be closely watched. On the campaign trail he called China a threat to Britain that needed to be contained, though he later toned down that rhetoric.

The G-20 meeting later this month will be his first major outing overseas.

But Sunak’s domestic in-tray, while partly influenced by external factors such as Russia’s war in Ukraine, is no doubt daunting. He has distanced himself from the 45-day tenure of his predecessor Truss, which was defined by a mini-budget that spooked the markets and led to her exit.

Sunak has sought to make a clean break from that immediate past and aims to deliver a medium-term fiscal plan that keeps costs down and incomes up. That will not be easy given that the British public is groaning under soaring food prices and energy costs. Small to medium businesses are skittish about investing capital in new materials and gear and are currently in a wait-and-watch mood.

Sunak’s critics see him as presiding over a high-tax economy marked by spending cuts and tax rises which will affect public services such as the National Health Services (NHS) and schools etc.

Sunak will also be under pressure to increase social security payments while, at the same time, aligning them with inflation.  That, however, means putting less money in the pockets of the poor. The people accessing food bank services is on the rise in Britain.

Sunak is scheduled to go head-to-head with Labour leader Keir Starmer in a televised national debate that will pit two contrasting political agendas.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man: so goes the old saying.

 Right now, Rishi Sunak is the man of the hour.