Rishi Sunak
British Prime Minister
RishiSunak is the Prime Minister of Great Britain, a Conservative Party politician. Former finance minister in Boris Johnson's cabinet.
Biography
Rishi Sunak was born in Southampton in 1980. His parents are of Indian descent but came to Britain from East Africa. His father was a doctor and his mother ran her own pharmacy.
The future politician comes from a fairly wealthy family, so the average and higher education received in the best institutions: first he studied at an exclusive private school Winchester College, and then at Oxford. At university, he studied philosophy, politics and economics.
In addition, Sunak studied at Stanford University, where he received a master's degree in business administration. There he met Akshata Murthy, daughter of Indian billionaire and co-founder of IT giant Infosys Narayana Murthy. Rishi and Akshata later married and are now raising two daughters.
At one time Sunak worked as an analyst for Goldman Sachs, one of the largest investment companies in the world. Such work allowed him to earn a considerable fortune. In Britain he is considered one of the richest parliamentarians. But Sunak himself does not like to touch upon this issue.
He entered the British parliament back in 2015, after which he became a junior minister in Theresa May's government. He voted for Brexit three times in parliament, arguing that the immigration policy contained in the agreement would benefit Britain.
After May's resignation, he became chief secretary of the treasury in Johnson's cabinet. The collaboration between Sunack and Johnson took things to the next level when he became Secretary of the Treasury. In July 2022, however, Sunak announced his resignation from the post, stating that his economic views were "too different" from those of the prime minister, and citing certain ethical issues.
In fact, this decision was the beginning of a political crisis surrounding Johnson, which was only intensified by accusations of party organizing during the general quarantine. Sunak himself was also a participant in the famous party, but was only punished with a fine.
A short millionaire in a holey shoe
An interesting fact is that Rishi Sunak is only 170 centimeters tall, making him 5 centimeters shorter than the average Briton, and the shortest premier since Winston Churchill, who was 168 centimeters tall.
Although Sunak does not like to talk about his condition, he admitted in a 2007 interview with the BBC that he did not have a single working-class friend. Is it to say that the working class did not like such remarks from the young conservative?
Sunak and his wife have a combined fortune of about 730 million pounds (UAH 30.6 billion). By comparison, the fortune of King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla is "only" 300-350 million pounds.
Estates, estates, estates.But that's not all. The new future Prime Minister has four properties located around the world. Their total value is 15 million pounds sterling (630 million hryvnias). One such property is a penthouse in Santa Monica (California, USA), where Rishi and Akshata planned to settle after the wedding. The apartment in one of the most expensive cities in the United States is valued at 5.5 million pounds sterling (almost 234 million UAH) and boasts a magnificent view of the world famous Santa Monica Pier and the Pacific Ocean.
Rishi himself with his wife and two daughters live in a five-bedroom house in Kensington, west London, which, according to real estate agents, is worth more than £7 million (UAH 294 million).
Think that's it? Like a true aristocrat, Sunak also has a Grade II listed estate in the picturesque village of Kirby Sigston in his Richmond constituency in North Yorkshire. The couple purchased the house for £1.5 million (UAH 63 million) before Sunack was elected MP in 2015.
Now the estate has actually been turned into something like a wellness center with a £400,000 (UAH 16.8 million) indoor pool, a gym, a yoga studio, a hot tub and a tennis court.
Interestingly, according to British media, Sunak will spend more than £14,000 (UAH 588,000) a year to heat just one 12x5-meter pool - almost six times more than the average family electricity bill in Britain.
In addition, Sunak became the first major British politician to make the Sunday Times list of Britain's richest people.
Too rich to be prime ministerGiven the politician's wealth, Britons reasonably wonder whether such a wealthy man can truly understand the financial problems of ordinary people. It's not just ordinary people who have questions. Labor MP Rachel Maskell recently said that Sunack's new pool of money showed that he could no longer be "disconnected from life" and was "living on another planet."
Oddly, Sunak has not thought of anything better to show the people that he is his own than to make a blatant show-off. In August 2022, he came to a public event wearing shoes with a hole in the sole, and did his best to let the whole country know about his worn-out shoes. Adding to the amusement was the fact that Sunak's expensive shoes had been discussed in the media many times before. So it was only by some miracle that the hole in the sole did not hurt the politician's political career.
The big plus for Sunak is that the British have already clearly understood - he knows the budget and knows what should and should not be done. Particularly while still competing with Liz Truss for the premiership, Rishi said that her economic plan would be a problem. And, as time has shown, he was quite right.
At the time, Sunak also stressed that he would rather lose to Truss than "win because of a false promise."
"No to racism, yes to HinduismAfter George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis and the Black Lives Matter movement swept much of the world in 2020, Sunak spoke candidly about the racism he himself faced in public life.
Rishi noted that there was one incident memorable to him when, as a teenager, he and his younger brother and sister heard British people in a fast-food restaurant say nasty things about them out loud about their backgrounds.
"It hit me. I still remember it. You can insult a person in many ways," the politician said.
He also publicly defended his Hindu faith by swearing on the revered Hindu text, Bhagavad Giti, when he took office.
