on reaching 100 days in 10 downing street this week rishi sunak will double the duration of liz trusss brutally short term as british prime minister but having stabilised panicky financial markets after the calamitous truss tenure the conservative leader has little to celebrate doubledigit inflation is fuelling a winter of misery for many in sunaks britain on wednesday the day before his minianniversary up to half a million workers will escalate a rolling series of strikes to shut down schools railways and other public sectors opposition labour leader keir starmer has been portraying the wealthy premier as weak and out of touch as both parties gear up for an election likely next year is he starting to wonder if this job is just too big for him he told the diminutive sunak in parliament last wednesday the labour leader was merciless as he ran the rule over britains state of permacrisis since brexit and the covid pandemic and sleaze among the conservatives ambulance drivers have also been striking joining nurses on their firstever walkout but sunak is adamant that unions pay demands will only fuel the decadeshigh inflation being an effective manager of public money and public services is not a sin senior minister michael gove said rejecting criticism that sunak is an uninspiring leader after boris johnson who preceded truss it is the case that first of all we have to bring the stability – and we have – and now we have set out areas where we are performing he told sky news on sunday sunak faces a mountainous challenge as he bids to emulate conservative leader john majors surprise win over labour in 1992 outside number 10 in october he promised integrity professionalism and accountability at every level  in pointed contrast to his two predecessors but sunak has been forced on the defensive by the tax affairs of the conservative chairman nadhim zahawi who until this weekend sat in the cabinet starmer on saturday accused sunaks tories of moral bankruptcy as less welloff voters are forced this winter to choose between eating and heating sunak had sought to buy time by launching an internal inquiry into zahawi who admitted to being careless with his own taxes and had to pay a sevenfigure sum to the uks tax agency  when he was finance minister in charge of the same agency the inquirys report was issued sunday making uncomfortable reading for both zahawi and sunak who bowed to the inevitable and fired the iraqiborn politician sunak a practising hindu who at 42 is britains youngest leader since 1812 has brought a smoothtalking technocratic approach to the premiership borne of his lucrative years in private finance opinion polls show he has restored some of the conservatives reputation for economic competence after the shortlived trussonomics experiment but labour retains an average lead of 20 points overall tory rightwingers such as former brexit minister david frost accuse sunak of lacking vision give us something to fight for frost wrote in the daily telegraph newspaper and bring conservatives back to the party sunak hopes to settle one running sore by reforming postbrexit rules governing trade in northern ireland a row over the protocol has paralysed selfgovernment in belfast but any deal with brussels risks provoking brexiteer hardliners among tory mps many of whom accuse sunak of betraying johnson and are likely to stir trouble if local elections in may turn out badly for the party tim bale politics professor at queen mary university of london and author of a forthcoming book on the conservatives since brexit said sunak had missed opportunities to carve out a fresh start from johnson sunak may have inherited something of a poisoned chalice but he nevertheless had a real opportunity to signal a big change at the top bale told afp yet even a cursory glance at the polls after his first 100 days suggests hes flunked it in short hes lived down to expectations if i were to award him a c plus id probably be erring on the side of generosity most voters wouldnt go any higher than a d