Sunak’s main task is to put the public finances in order. Exactly how he intends to do that will be announced early next week by his Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt during the so-called ‘Halloween’ budget. There will probably be another time of austerity, necessary to win the confidence of the financial markets. In principle, Sunak is in favor of tax cuts, but there must be financial room for that. He is more positive about working with the European Union, for example in seeking a solution in Northern Ireland, than his two predecessors.
Sunak’s election can safely be called a milestone. Sunak, 42, is the first British Prime Minister to come from an ethnic minority group. He is the son of Indian immigrants who came to England from Kenya and Tanzania in the 1970s. His grandparents have their roots in the Punjab. Sunak’s parents, who settled in Southampton, were paragons of successful immigrants. His father became a doctor and his mother a pharmacist. Their income was ample to send young Rishi to Winchester College, one of England’s most prestigious boarding schools.
Summer job
Young Rishi earned his first pounds with a summer job as a waiter in an Indian restaurant. He also did the accounting for his mother and did an internship at the headquarters of the Conservative Party. Thanks to his good performance in school, he managed to get a scholarship for an MBA degree at Stanford University in California, the state he would fall in love with. At Stanford he met his future wife Akshata Murthy, daughter of one of the richest men in India, the ICT entrepreneur NR Narayana Murthy. They bought a large apartment in California, where they hope to live again one day.
The ethnic background of Sunak, who swore the parliamentary oath on the Bhagavad Gita (important book in Hinduism), has hardly been mentioned over the years. In no other western country is politics more diverse than in the United Kingdom. In 2015, he was elected MP for Richmond, an affluent constituency in the Yorkshire Dales, succeeding former party leader William Hague. In these extremely conservative parts, this British of Indian descent encountered some skepticism, but that soon dissipated when he held large receptions in the gardens of the 18th-century mansion he had bought. ‘The Maharaja of the Dales’, that’s how he got his nickname.
When he, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, threatened to miss his party’s gala dinner in central Wales last spring due to busy work in London, he hired a £10,000 helicopter to fly from Battersea Heliport in London to his party members and back. That came naturally to the man who is now the richest resident 10 Downing Street has ever owned. Together with his wife Akshata, who has her own fashion company, he can probably buy up the entire street.
Sunak made his own millions. After graduating, he joined Goldman Sachs, after which he spent three years as an employee at The Children’s Investment Fund (TCI), a hedge fund owned by billionaire Chris Hohn. During the credit crisis of 2007, this fund campaigned for the controversial takeover of ABN Amro by The Royal Bank of Scotland. It led to the British government having to bail out the Scottish bank. Sunak played no part in the campaign. After working for TCI for three years, Sunak became a partner at Thélème Partners and also worked for an investment fund of his father-in-law.
Politics Called
In his thirties he was now rich enough to retire, but Conservative politics called. Sunak voted for Brexit in 2016 and took a modest position in Theresa May’s government. His breakthrough came when Boris Johnson came to power. He first took on the role of Chief Secretary to the Treasury, a sort of Secretary of State for the Treasury, and took over in charge of that department in early 2020, following the departure of his friend Sajid Javid, another Briton of Asian descent who had entered politics after become a millionaire in the financial world.
He fell head over heels in the corona crisis. He had great doubts about instituting a lockdown, but he was presented with a fait accompli. Sunak’s job was to provide financial aid to citizens and businesses, with the bill rising to the equivalent of 500 billion euros. It gained him considerable popularity, especially when he gave his compatriots discounts on food in restaurants after the first lockdown. Come Dine With Me, one of the newspapers headlined with a photo showing the minister fulfilling his old job as a waiter. He was named as Johnson’s successor.
After the corona crisis, his star began to decline. During Partygate, he was fined for joining the small-scale celebration of Johnson’s birthday. More damaging was the revelation that his wife, who has only Indian nationality, was making use of a special arrangement whereby she is only taxed on her assets in her home country. Behind the scenes, he often had disagreements with Johnson, who he believed was spending too much money. With his prudent approach to public finances, ‘Rishi Rich’ is more in the party’s conservative tradition.
Quarrel with Johnson
The simmering feud exploded when Sunak decided to resign in early July after it was revealed that Johnson had once again covered up the truth. His departure sparked an uprising and the downfall of Johnson. He took a big risk with this, because loyalty is an important value within the party. Soon after Johnson’s pledge to step down, Sunak released a promotional video, raising suspicions that he had long been preparing for a leadership battle.
Sunak, whose mother-in-law is the author of popular children’s books, received the most support from group members. In the final battle with Truss, where party members had the final say, his wealth, elite background and his role as “Judas” worked against him. An old video recording of young Rishi claiming to have no working-class friends didn’t help.
For the past few weeks, he silently watched the implosion of his rival as the chaos he predicted spilled over into the money markets. The new attempt to become prime minister under the motto Ready for Rishi was successful, not least because the party members did not get a vote this time.