Each of the consecutive Conservatives that we have called Prime Minister can often be summed up in two words: pig headed; dancing queen; bumbling oaf; literally lettuce. It can now be said that that trend has been broken with the new Prime Minister, instead being described with four words. The ‘Lanky Twelve-Year-Old,’ Rishi Sunak, came into office on the 25th of October 2022. Sunak, to quote Keir Starmer, was initially ‘trounced by Truss who [in herself] got beaten by a lettuce.’ Our first half term of the academic school year was under former Prime Minister (that’s always funny to say) Liz Truss, and now we have Sunak for the second half. So where did Sunak come from? How did he get his start? And who will we have as Prime Minister come next half-term?
Rishi Sunak was born on the 12th of May 1980 in Southampton to parents Yashvir and Usha Sunak – African Born Hindus of Punjabi Descent – who both worked in the healthcare sector (His father Yashvir works for the NHS, and his mother Usha owns ‘Sunak Pharmacy’ in Southampton). As Sunak ‘boasts,’ although his parents were not exceedingly wealthy, they worked hard to raise enough funds for Sunak to go to Winchester College to study Philosophy, Politics and Ethics (PPE – the variety that was not short during 2020), with the Tory lifestyle rubbing off on him when he joked as a student that he did not have any working-class friends. It was also there where he would meet Akshata Murty – daughter of billionaire N.R. Narayana Murty – who he would marry later, in August 2009. He would graduate with a first in 2001, after which he would work as an analyst for the investment bank Golden Sachs till 2004. He would go on to worked for the hedge fund management firm the Children’s Investment Fund Management between 2006 and 2009 (the latter being the year he got married) before. He would go on to work on a new firm, Theleme Partners, the same year in California with some old friends, before becoming the director of Catamaran Ventures – a business owned by his father-in-law – between 2013 and 2015. He would have two daughters in 2011 and 2013 respectively. Sunak can be said to fit the bill of the ‘rich conservative’ (he can be summed up in two words!) stereotype, not only with his wealth in the business sector, but also with his wife’s shares in her father’s company, Infosys – shares that make her one of the wealthiest women in Britain.
Sunak’s political career is relatively recent in comparison to the likes of Kwarteng and Truss, only becoming an MP in 2015 for Richmond. Between 2018 and 2019 Sunak served as ‘Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government’ under former Prime Minister, Theresa May. He then became the ‘Chief Secretary to the Treasury’ under the Blond Baron, a role which was preceded by Liz Truss – the first time Rishi overtook the esteemed opener of pork markets in a position in government. After Sajid Javid fell out with Boris on a matter of principle, Sunak was bought in as the new ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer’ in February 2020 – and it seemed they would get on well, Sunak being the self-professed Star Wars fanatic and Johnson as well I think (after all, there can’t be another reason he keeps quoting Darth Vader: ‘I am your father’). Sunak’s time in this one gained the most public notoriety Sunak had probably faced. During ‘the lurgy’, Sunak was both admiring and disgusting: admiration in him saving thousands of jobs through the furlough scheme; disgust through his ‘eat out help out’ scheme, which probably caused more cases of the virus. But Sunak would face his most heat as Chancellor in April 2022. Like all Conservative MPs, Sunak faced tension from the ‘partygate’ scandal and Sunak would be fined in that epoch (his first of currently two fines). On top of this, news came to light that Sunak’s wife, one of the richest women in Britain, was not registered to be living in the UK and was thusly not paying tax, and of top of this Rishi himself faced the same issue as he technically lived in America via his green card, and also didn’t have to pay the taxes he set out. Sunak had been ousted, and tried to separate himself from Boris, being seen as a backstabber in the process. But you can’t keep our man down, as Sunak would throw his hat in the ring for the bid to be the next Prime Minister, and initially would be topping the leaderboards, before squaring up to Liz Truss, in which he lost (mind you only narrowly with a 20,000 gap between the two). But our lad Rishi need not sulk for too long, as we all know that Truss was able to only last about seven weeks, and Rishi was brought back again, infamously avoiding Matt Hancock at the Conservative Party HQ – and now everyone will be able to avoid Matt Hancock as well, as like all of Britain’s past criminals, he has been sent to the Australian jungle.
But going forward we can wish Rishi Sunak the best for his tenure as Prime Minister – yeah, right. Whilst Sunak has been able to recontrol the commons back to arguing on a party vs party basis, not within a party, Sunak has already faced issues over Suella Braverman’s incompetence, Gavin Williamson’s harassment and going to Cop27 – an event he dubbed ‘greenface’ and told the King not to go to, until he saw that Boris was going to it (and if your trying to one-up Boris, then what’s the point? You can’t be seen as looking bad in comparison to the man who drank too much Tesco’s wine over Christmas? It’s just sinking to an extra low, lower than low, lower than lower than low which is lower than Matt Hancock going on ‘I’m a Celebrity’). Over December, Sunak kept a low profile, only to be fined for the second time over not wearing a seatbelt in a video posted online. Only time will tell for Sunak, and whether he will survive as Prime Minister is anyone’s guess.