by A year has come to be a long and treacherous road in politics, as the recent upheavals attest. But Rishi Sunak survived his first stint as prime minister.
Mr Sunak will have lasted more than seven times longer than Liz Truss's fleeting tenure when he celebrates his first anniversary in No 10 on Wednesday.
But the No 10 is keen to quash suggestions there will be celebrations of any kind as he faces entrenched unease among the Tories, a stuttering economy and crises abroad.
Mr Sunak may have steadied the ship after his predecessor's chaotic 49-day spell as prime minister, but he remains a distant second behind Labor in the polls.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said Mr. Sunak “is more focused on continuing to deliver for the public than celebrating an anniversary.”
He will face Sir Keir Starmer at Prime Minister's Questions as Westminster remains largely preoccupied by the unfolding horrors of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
The Green benches of the Commons are expected to have two new Labor faces, however, after the party overturned two huge Conservative majorities, in Tamworth and Mid Bedfordshire.
The loss of two seats they last won with majorities of more than 19,000 means many Conservative MPs are worried about their own prospects in next year's general election.
An increasingly dangerous international image adds to Mr. Sunak's challenges as the war continues in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict creates a powder keg in the Middle East.
Mr Sunak's own five priorities – halving inflation, growing the economy, reducing the national debt, cutting hospital waiting lists and stopping migrant boats across the Channel – are proving difficult to be fulfilled.
It may be on track to reduce inflation to around 5.3% by the end of the year, with September's rate holding steady at 6.7%.
But the economy is growing weakly and the national debt has reached nearly £2.6 trillion, about 97.8% of GDP, a measure of national income.
More than 26,500 people have been spotted crossing the Channel in small boats this year, meaning Mr Sunak is far from being able to say he has stopped them.
The failure to end NHS doctors' strikes has hampered Mr Sunak's plan to cut waiting lists.
There have been reports of letters of no confidence in Mr Sunack, although there is no successor chosen, even if Tory MPs make the unlikely, nuclear choice.
He is under increasing pressure to deliver a tax cut, with speculation that chancellor Jeremy Hunt is considering action in the spring budget.
However, whether he survives to that point is not guaranteed, amid rumors that a reshuffle so Mr Sunak can build his team for the election battle is on the horizon.
Some Tory MPs would like to see a peer more willing to reduce the burden of the public leading the Treasury.
Labour's shadow mercenary strategist Jonathan Ashworth gave his own assessment that “man of inertia” Mr Sunak was not “powerful enough to change Britain's fortunes”.
He said: “The past year has seen the weak Rishi Sunak pressured by a chaotic and divided Conservative Party, allow Liz Truss to dictate government policy and miserably fail to deliver for hard-pressed working families paying more for their mortgage thanks to the Tories.”
For the Lib Dems, shadow cabinet office spokeswoman Christine Jardine said the country was “in a constant cycle of Tory shenanigans and scandals, going from one crisis to another”.
He added: “Rishi Sunak should call a general election now so that the voters can put this government out of its misery. The British public deserve better than another year of utter chaos.”
However, Tory leader Greg Hunts praised the Prime Minister while acknowledging there was “more to be done”.
“When Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister a year ago today, he took immediate action to support families with the cost of living by paying half their energy bills. Since then we have made good progress towards halving inflation, growing the economy, reducing debt, reducing NHS waiting lists and stopping ships,” he said.
He added: “But over the last 30 years, the Prime Minister recognizes that there have been too many short-term political decisions, politicians taking the easy way out, avoiding the hard choices, rather than fixing the underlying problems.
“The Prime Minister has shown that he is the only person determined to change this.”
