What’s next for Rishi Sunak as prime minister?

What is Rishi Sunak going to do as prime minister? We are still little the wiser, even after he addressed the nation from CCHQ with an extremely short and vague statement. Without managing to look into the camera filming him, he promised that he would bring the party and the country back together, and paid tribute to his predecessor for leading the country with 'dignity and grace'.

Sunak said 'there is no doubt we face a profound economic challenge', and that unity was the 'only way we will overcome the challenges we face and build a better, more prosperous future for our children and our grandchildren'. He would, he vowed, 'work day in, day out, to deliver for the British people'. And that was it.

The incoming prime minister had expected the wheels to come off the Truss government at some point, though the speed at which they did – and then the gap between the outgoing PM and the new leader being appointed – surprised him. This felt like the statement of someone who had been caught totally unawares by what had just happened, even though Sunak has now completed two leadership contests in the space of four months, and spent a good while expounding on his plans for the country in the first one. A lot has changed since then, not least that most of what he predicted regarding Trussonomics has come to pass, and he will need to work out a new narrative that involves him fixing this new mess.

He told Tory MPs he didn't want an election straight away, and his address hinted at that too. Much of the discourse of the past few days hasn't even been about whether the Tories can win an election but whether the new leader can bring the warring factions within the beleaguered party back together at all. Many of Sunak's colleagues seem relieved this afternoon that they've picked a captain who'll take the ship down in a dignified fashion, rather than a leader to win an historic fifth term. There wasn't much of a suggestion that Sunak thought otherwise, either.