British police said on Tuesday that Rishi Sunak, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer (i.e. Secretary of State for Business and Finance), is being fined along with Prime Minister Boris Johnson for attending parties held at his residence during the first lockdown will be restrictions in place. In recent months, Sunak has been one of his party’s most popular, wellrespected and fastestrising politicians, making him the most likely replacement for Johnson, who was facing serious threats of resignation due to party troubles. But Sunak has recently found himself in serious trouble: the fine has led to another major tax avoidance scandal involving his wife, and the two scandals together risk becoming a serious obstacle to his promising career.
Sunak has been Chancellor of the Exchequer in Boris Johnson’s government since 2020. The son of Indian immigrants, a graduate of Oxford University and also studying at Stanford, USA, Sunak had worked for major investment bank Goldman Sachs and entered politics in 2014 with the Conservative Party led by Johnson. Partly because of his history as the son of immigrants who grew up to be a wealthy and successful man, and partly because he managed to appear serious and competent in handling the pandemic, Sunak had gained a lot of popularity lately.
It was particularly evident in the socalled Partygate, the scandal of the parties organized during the pandemic, which was investigated first by the government itself and then by the London police: Because of the scandal, the Conservative Party’s support for Boris Johnson had fallen significantly. Various party members had begun preparing to replace him in the UK this is done by collecting a series of formal applications and the possibility of him losing his job seemed very real. At the time, Sunak was very adept at distancing himself from Johnson without ever getting into direct confrontations.
In other words, Johnson’s troubles seemed to favor Sunak: his name ended up being the one that circulated the most among potential replacements for Johnson at the helm of the party (and therefore the country, because it would have meant that Sunak would have the majority of the votes). had votes in Parliament).
In the space of a few weeks, however, things have fundamentally reversed: the expression considered “unsuitable for his role”, a formula used during the scandal notably against Boris Johnson, was replaced by Sunak, while Johnson focused on diplomatic efforts in the US Crisis concentrated Ukraine, which has benefited it among other things, wrote Politico, one of the “leaders of the Western response” to the Ukraine war. Johnson has been very strict in imposing sanctions on Russia and a few days ago traveled to Ukraine to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in person and even posed for a picture with him on the streets of Kyiv.
What caused Sunak more trouble than the holiday fine was a tax scandal involving his wife, wealthy fashion designer Akshata Murty.
Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty (YouTube)
Murty is the daughter of Indian billionaire Narayana Murthy, founder and CEO of IT multinational Infosys, in which her daughter has a stake. In early April, it was revealed, possibly through an indiscretion to the newspapers by someone within the government, that Murthy’s wife was ‘nondomiciled’ in the UK, a status which allowed her, although permanently resident in the country, to pay taxes related to hers foreign income (huge considering the taxes from the company her father started) not to pay in the country: this condition had enabled her to avoid paying millions of dollars in UK taxes.
This is perfectly legal as it pays taxes in India; However, the news that Murthy has effectively avoided paying millions of pounds to the country where she lives permanently (and where her husband serves as business minister) has caused significant discontent.
Sunak tried to contain the scandal: his wife agreed to pay taxes related to his overseas earnings in the UK; He formally requested that his personal tax situation be the subject of an investigation awaiting the appeal, which in all likelihood would have called for an investigation shortly thereafter, and knowing that according to Politico no further irregularities would surface and promptly showed himself to do so and willing to work with institutions.
However, at least for now, these steps don’t seem to have helped much. Also because his wife’s tax scandal hasn’t been Sunak’s only problem in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, it was also known that he had kept his green card which allowed him to live and work in the United States, where he had studied and met his wife for 19 months after becoming a minister there UK (couldn’t do it). According to various observers, his popularity has also fallen after the cost of living in the UK hit a number of families hard and with whom he is inevitably associated as Minister for Economic Affairs.
Its demise has obviously benefited the opposition. Labor leader Keir Starmer accused Sunak of being a “hypocrite” and called for his resignation along with that of Johnson, whom he had already described as a “shameless man”. In addition, the Sunak scandals are also worrying members of the Conservative Party, especially in view of the May 5 local elections. In addition, growing tensions between Sunak and Johnson, who resent his lack of support during the furlough scandal, are helping to weaken the party.