The New Statesman

At the beginning of this year, Kyr Stama vowed to bring down the cost of living.

But as other Prime Ministers learned before him, this is often out of the government's control.

The Iran War is threatening to ruin his strategy, and Stama now finds himself in a bind.

I'm Anusha Kellyan, and you're listening to Daily Politics from The New Statesman. Joining me today is our political editor, Alva Ray. Hi, Alva. Hello. So, what are the parallels? We mentioned past prime ministers who have had to cope with sudden shocks that affect the cost of living. Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak. What are the parallels with what they had to cope with here?

The year of the three prime ministers.

Yes, 2022.

A busy year.

A good year for business, if you're a journalist, but a bad year for pretty much everyone else.

I was, because it was so odd writing the column on this this week thinking,

how funny that you have to talk about three prime ministers

grappling with the same political moment

because there were three in such short succession.

Obviously the Russian invasion of Ukraine

caused a massive energy spike.

And at an energy price spike that trickled through because like a massive wave

of inflation and brought up the cost of everything and that was at the tail end of Boris Johnson's

premiership then Liz Truss's premiership and then Rishi Sunak took over while all of that was sort of really

politically pressing and this week I have was sort of really politically pressing.

And this week, I have been sort of thinking about the parallels because people in government are also thinking about it.

I mean, you might remember that, I mean,

you actually might remember when the queen died.

...