When I first moved into project management I asked my boss what he thought the top attribute of a successful project manager was. He said: ‘be lucky’, which is undoubtedly correct but hardly actionable.

Was there ever a luckier Prime Minister than Rishi Sunak?   I think not, here’s why:

At six key points the dice have fallen heavily Sunak’s way.

1. Family.  Even before he was born, luck was on Sunak’s side.  His grandparents and parents were able to move from East Africa to Britain in the 1960s.  It was a more accommodating Britain that took them in and reaped the benefits of their evident talents and public service.   Would Sunak’s grandparents qualify to come to Britain today?  I doubt it.
2. Education. If you want to succeed have rich parents.  Sunak had the tremendous good fortune to be born to rich and supportive parents. He received a top education at Winchester where the annual day fees are currently higher than the median UK household income.
3. Marriage. Making the most of his good fortune he gained at first at Oxford and a Fulbright Scholarship to Stanford, where he met his wife.  Who luckily happens to be a multi-millionaire, giving Sunak the financial security to pursue his career in politics.
4. Chancellor.  13 February 2020 saw Sunak at his luckiest.  Sajid Javid resigned as CoE on a point of principle in a spat with an unelected nobody.  Sunak kept his principles under control and accepted the job…
5. Covid.  …at possibly the only time in the past century when just being CoE could make you popular.  Within weeks Covid had ripped through the country and Dishy Rishi was doling out the largess en route to becoming the most popular CoE since… oh… Gordon Brown in 2005.
6. Leadership.  When Partygate and other scandals did for Johnson, Sunak stood for the leadership…  and was roundly beaten by a lettuce.   But then, Sunak’s luck struck again as Truss self-destructed within 50 days, Johnson got cold-feet, and the 1922 committee gamed the contest to prevent Sunak having to face rejection by the members.  Hey presto: Rishi Sunak PM.

Lucky, lucky, lucky, and lucky, lucky, lucky again.

But let’s be clear, this is not Gary Player’s ‘the harder I practice, the luckier I get’ type of luck.  It is not ‘Lucky Jack’ Aubrey’s ‘fortune favours the brave’ luck either.   It is random chance, pure and simple.

If Sunak wins the election from here through some black swan event, I might begin to believe he is supernaturally lucky.  But he won’t and he isn’t. 

He’s been luckier than Kylie at her peak but there’s no reason he will be luckier than you or I in the future, and without another enormous stroke of good fortune his future as PM is sealed.

Benpointer