Rishi Sunak, 42, who was beaten by Liz Truss at the beginning of September, could soon take revenge: he started the race for Downing Street on Sunday and would be the first non-white head of government in the United Kingdom with a win.
While Liz Truss’s budget measures, announced in late September, ignited markets and sent the pound to historic lows, the former Boris Johnson Treasury Secretary has remained extremely discreet.
But Rishi Sunak had warned Conservatives during this summer’s election campaign that Liz Truss’ program was a “fairy tale” and that her massive tax cuts would result in higher borrowing costs.
The storm in the markets and her unpopularity swept away Liz Truss, who resigned after 44 days in office.
Rishi Sunak started the race for his successor on Sunday after having far exceeded the number of sponsorships required. “I want to fix our economy, unite our party and serve the country,” he wrote on Twitter.
So multi-millionaire Rishi Sunak, a former banker who has been accused by some of being a disconnected technocrat, is back on the front page with credibility at the highest level.
For his supporters, Sunak’s message in the previous Downing Street campaign about the need for economic prudence to fight inflation showed he was the man for the job. His fiscal caution, which had seen him as too centrist and smooth, is now reassuring.
The conservative, grandson of Indian immigrants, was the Tory MP’s preferred candidate last summer.
But he paid to Liz Truss for slamming the door of the Johnson administration in early July, followed by some sixty colleagues. He is accused of betraying Boris Johnson, with whom he remains at odds. The party rank and file, which had the final say, had preferred Liz Truss.
elite course
Rishi Sunak was elected Member of Parliament for Yorkshire (Northern England) in 2015. Almost five years later, at the age of 39, just before the pandemic began, he took up the coveted post of finance minister.
This early Brexit supporter gained popularity by doling out billions of pounds in state aid during the Covid-19 pandemic.
But his fortune, amassed during his career in finance and through his marriage to Akshata Murty, daughter of an Indian multi-billionaire, sometimes unnerves him as the British tighten their belts.
In the face of such criticism, this Star Wars saga fan speaks of his family history as a “success story” like conservatives like her.
Born on May 12, 1980 in Southampton on the south coast of England, Rishi Sunak is the eldest of three children and the son of a general practitioner in public health and a pharmacist. Born in India, his grandparents emigrated to British East Africa in the 1960s.
“My family immigrated here 60 years ago. [Ma mère] ran the local pharmacy in Southampton. That’s where I grew up, in the shop, delivering the medicines. I worked as a waiter at the Indian restaurant down the street, he said during the last leadership campaign. “I am here thanks to the hard work, sacrifice and love of my parents.”
However, Rishi Sunak quickly rose to the elite by attending Winchester College, a very fancy boarding school for boys. He then studied politics, philosophy and economics at the renowned universities of Oxford, England, and Stanford, USA.
Before entering politics, he worked in finance, particularly at Goldman Sachs, and founded his own investment company.
When he was elected MP in 2015, the father of two daughters took an oath on the Bhagavad Gita, a Sanskrit text that is considered one of the fundamental scriptures of Hinduism.