Who is UK’s New Prime Minister Rishi Sunak?

https://sputniknews.com/20221025/who-is-uks-new-prime-minister-rishi-sunak-1102610301.html

Who is UK’s New Prime Minister Rishi Sunak?

Who is UK’s New Prime Minister Rishi Sunak?

Rishi Sunak became the first Indian-origin Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after Liz Truss announced her resignation on October 20, unleashing yet another… 25.10.2022, Sputnik International

2022-10-25T14:51+0000

2022-10-25T14:51+0000

2022-10-25T14:51+0000

uk

rishi sunak

boris johnson

liz truss

uk conservative party

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Rishi Sunak has officially become UK Prime Minister. The former Chancellor of the Exchequer is the third Tory to hold office at No 10, Downing Street, this year, as Liz Truss announced her resignation on October 20, after just 44 days in the job. After ex-PM Boris Johnson pulled out of the conservative party leadership race on October 23, and would-be candidate House of Commons leader Penny Mordaunt failed to garner the required number of at least 100 nominations from Conservative MPs, Sunak had been the sole contender for the position. As the MP for Richmond delivered a statement at the Conservative Party’s headquarters on Monday, the UK’s first Prime Minister of colour and the first practising Hindu to take the top job said:King Charles III accepted the resignation of Liz Truss on October 25, asking Rishi Sunak to form a new government.What Are Rishi Sunak’s Origins?Rishi Sunak, who is 42 years old, was born on May 12, 1980, in Southampton, Hampshire, South East England to Indian parents Yashvir and Usha Sunak, who were born in Kenya and Tanzania respectively. Sunak senior was a General Practitioner (GP) in the National Health Service (NHS), while the new PM’s mother was a pharmacist who ran a local pharmacy. Sunak’s grandparents were born in Punjab Province, and later moved to East Africa. They subsequently emigrated to the UK in the 1960s.Rishi Sunak, who is 170cm (5ft 6 inches) tall, is the eldest of three siblings: his brother, Sanjay, is a psychologist, while his sister, Rakhi, works as the Head of Humanitarian, Peacebuilding, UN Funds and Programmes at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.When opening up about his Indian lineage, Sunak stated in UK media interviews that, “British Indian is what I tick on the census, we have a category for it. I am thoroughly British, this is my home and my country, but my religious and cultural heritage is Indian, my wife is Indian. I am open about being a Hindu.”Rishi Sunak was educated at one of the UK’s elite private boarding schools – the prestigious Winchester College. He then proceeded to study philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University, where he was awarded a first-class degree. Sunak gained a master’s of business administration (MBA) at Stanford University, California.During his time at the University, Sunak undertook an internship at Conservative Campaign Headquarters. He subsequently worked as an analyst at investment bank Goldman Sachs between 2001 and 2004. Sunak proceeded to join the Children’s Investment Fund Management (TCI) and became a partner in September 2006. He also carved out a career at another hedge fund firm – Theleme Partners – in 2009.It was at Stanford University that Rishi Sunak met his wife, Akshata Murty. The couple tied the knot in 2009, getting married in Bangalore, India. The pair soon moved to the UK.Akshata is the daughter of Indian billionaire and co-founder of an IT services company – Infosys – NR Narayana Murthy, dubbed the Bill Gates of India. Incidentally, Akshata Murty’s family use two different spellings for their surname – Murty and Murthy – with her father favouring the latter.The couple got married in 2009 in Bengaluru and have two daughters, Anoushka and Krishna. For some time, Rishi Sunak served as the director of investment firm Catamaran Ventures, owned by his father-in-law.Rishi Sunak’s wife is listed on LinkedIn as head of three businesses: capital and private equity firm Catamaran Ventures, gym chain Digme Fitness and gentlemen’s outfitters New & Lingwood. Murty’s tax affairs found their way into the headlines earlier in the year after it emerged that her status as a non-domiciled UK resident meant she did not have to pat tax on her earnings from outside the UK. She later agreed to pay UK taxes on her worldwide income.What is Rishi Sunak’s Net Worth?Rishi Sunak’s Tory leadership win has thrust his wealth into the spotlight. Ex-banker Sunak and his Indian tech heiress wife’s net worth is an estimated 730 million pounds ($830 million), according to the Sunday Times Rich List. In comparison, the late Queen Elizabeth II was estimated to have about 370 million pounds ($420 million) as per this year’s list, published before her demise. The Sunak family made the greater part of their money thanks to income from Murty’s stake in her father’s company, Infosys. The software firm’s dividends for the tax year 2021/2022 alone totalled around £11.5m ($13, 014m). As for Rishi Sunak’s wife, her total net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, is around $1.2billion – significantly more that King Charles III.The couple are listed as owning at least three homes in Britain: a £6.6 million ($7.4 million) mews mansion in Kensington, London, a home in the Chelsea neighborhood, on Old Brompton Road, described as a ‘holiday home’ for visiting relatives, and a Georgian manor house in North Yorkshire where they spend their weekends. The Sunak’s also own a Santa Monica, California, penthouse apartment valued at around $6 million, according to media reports. As far as vehicles are concerned, earlier in March, Rishi Sunak claimed he drives a Volkswagen Golf to get around London. The new PM reportedly owns four cars, one of which is believed to be a high-specification Range Rover, costing around £94,000 ($ 106,400). The other two cars are said to be a top-of-the-range Lexus and a BMW.The reportedly highly-disciplined new PM prefers to start his day with an early morning workout on the treadmill or the Peloton bike. Rishi Sunak is a lifelong teetotaller and doesn’t eat beef, with a soft spot for Coca-Cola and double chocolate muffins, according to media reports. Sunak is also a long-time Southampton FC fan.How Did Sunak From MP to PM?Rishi Sunak, who stood for Parliament in 2015 made a rapid ascent in politics. He was selected as a candidate in one of the ‘safe’ Tory seats of Richmond, North Yorkshire, in 2014. The seat has been held by the Conservative Party for over 100 years, and in May 2015 Sunak won with more than 50 per cent of the vote. From 2015 to 2017, he served as a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee. Sunak was one of the original supporters of the Brexit campaign, and supported the EU referendum in 2016. He is known for having penned a report for the Centre for Policy Studies supporting the establishment of free ports after Brexit.Rishi Sunak was re-elected as MP from the same seat in the 2017 General Election, and served as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary from January 2018 to July 2019. In the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election Sunak fully supported Boris Johnson, and himself was re-elected and subsequently appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson in July 2019. At the time, Sunak served under Chancellor Sajid Javid, becoming a member of the Privy Council on July 25, 2019. Sunak was promoted to Chancellor of the Exchequer after a cabinet reshuffle in February 2020, a position he held until his resignation in July 2022. What Policies is Rishi Sunak Famous For?Rishi Sunak presented his first budget on March 11, 2020, amid the COVID-19 epidemic. At the time, as he announced £30 billion of additional spending, £12 billion was allocated for mitigation of the economic impact of the pandemic. On March 17, 2020, Sunak unveiled £330 billion in emergency support for businesses, as well as a salary subsidy scheme for employees, following this up with the job retention scheme that was eventually extended until 30 September 2021.Sunak’s £30 billion-worth ‘Eat Out to Help Out Scheme’ was tailored to support and create jobs in the hospitality industry by coaxing people out of their homes into pubs and restaurants post- lockdown. The government-subsidized food and soft drinks offer, giving people the chance to get up to 50% off their food and drinks bill when diningout, lasted from 3 to 31 August 2020. For his program, Sunak was dubbed “Dishy Rishy” by the UK press. The-then Chancellor made headlines in spring as he revealed plans for tax levels to rise to their highest in more than 70 years.Incidentally, Rishi Sunak has a blot on his record, linking him to the so-called “partygate” scandal that toppled Johnson’s government. Sunak was fined by the police while in office as Chancellor for attending parties at 10 Downing Street as Britons were under strict lockdown restrictions.After scandal-mired then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his resignation in July 2022, Rishi Sunak entered the race to Tory leadership, eventually battling it out with Liz Truss. Analysts speculated that it was Sunak’s track record for fiscal conservatism that cost him the leadership contest against Truss, who campaigned on a platform of sweeping tax cuts.At the time, Sunak had warned the mulled tax slashing would end in disaster for the British economy, saying, “Borrowing your way out of inflation isn’t a plan, it’s a fairytale.” He had pitched himself as the fiscally conservative candidate, promising to “deliver tax cuts that drive growth”, but to do so in a “way that’s responsible”. He vowed to reduce the base rate of income tax by 20 percent, taking 1p off income tax in 2024 and an additional 3p over the next parliament. Rishi Sunak also surprised many with his U-turn to scrap value added tax on domestic energy bills, after dismissing the VAT cuts earlier, when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. As the cost of living crisis hit households, Sunak said during a leadership debate that the measure was “pretty much the only lever left” to help millions of households in October. he had also taken swipes at Truss’s £34 billion ($41 billion) planned tax cuts, saying the economy didn’t need a “sugar rush boom that will make us all feel better for months, but then it runs out of control.” The former chancellor has since been vindicated over his warnings during the first leadership campaign.What Challenges Does Rishi Sunak Face as PM?Rishi Sunak takes over the role of Prime Minister in a counrty heading into a painful recession, amid soaring inflation, growing borrowing bills for the givernment and vocal calls to tax more and spend less. After the fallout from Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget, with the subsequent U-turns on the government’s unfunded tax-cutting economic package that sent shock waves across jittery financial markets and sank the Tories in the polls, fixing the economy is no easy task. Rishi Sunak, who consistently tried to position himself as a low-tax Tory, pledged to reduce the bottom rate of income tax from 20 percent to 16 percent overtime, to ensure the cuts were funded by “growth” and not borrowing. “I will never get taxes down in a way that just puts inflation up,” he said.However, Sunak’s decision to freeze income tax thresholds until 2026 will force approximately 1.6m more people to pay the higher rate of income tax by the end of the parliament, warned the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS). Sunak also pledged to elevate corporation tax from 19 to 25 percent, while previously, as Chancellor, he was responsible for the 1.25 percent increase in National Insurance contributions for employees and employers. However, this was ditched by the government under Truss. His allies have since been cited in media reports as claiming Sunak will not reintroduce the National Insurance increase, albeit it would have potentially raised £15 billion, helping to balance the nation’s books. Rishi Sunak also imposed a four-year freeze on income tax thresholds that was set to raise £21billion.One key challenge for Sunak will be the Energy Price Guarantee, a subsidy scheme conceived by Truss to help homes and businesses cope with higher gas and electricity bills. It was set to last for two years, until a U-turn by new Chancellor Jeremy Hunt revealed the guarantee would only last until April. Without the scheme, a typical household energy bill could rise from the current £2,500 to more than £4,000 next spring, while also sending inflation rocketing.While earlier Sunak had guaranteed that benefits, tax credits and pensions would rise in line with the recent inflation rate of 10.1 percent, the promise might be hard to keep in the face of the ominous government borrowing gap of £30-40bn.As the government has been struggling to balance its books, public sector workers have been increasingly restless, with UK trade unions flexing their muscles to demand more money for their members. Tens of thousands of workers have already turned out this year, with strikes by train drivers, dock workers, mail employees, criminal barristers and telecoms staff.The UK policy towards Ukraine is not anticipated to change under Rishi Sunak, who during leadership campaigning in the summer said he would maintain Britain’s backing and make an early visit to Kiev. Truss had promised to increase defence spending from 2 percent to 3 percent of national wealth, in a target Sunak had called “arbitrary.” In fact, defence spending plunged Sunak into a row with Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary. Wallace had accused Sunak of attempting to block a multi-year settlement for the Armed Forces in 2019. Rishi Sunak was also criticised by Ben Wallace for “walking out the door” when he resigned as Chancellor, cited by UK media as saying:Regarding the lingering and contentious post-Brexit issue of the Northern Ireland Protocol Rishi Sunak faces the same problems as Truss did. Thus, amid the deadlock, there is still no Northern Ireland Executive after the power-sharing Assembly broke down when the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) refused to take part due to opposing the Northern Ireland Protocol. The protocol has effectively placed a sea border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland after Brexit. During hustings in Belfast in August, Sunak promised to back a bill to override much of the NI Protocol.On the campaign trail, Rishi Sunak also vowed he would make the UK energy independent by 2045, saying:Regarding the Channel migrant crisis which plagued the tenure of Boris Johnson, Sunak said in the summer that he would cap the number of refugees the UK would take in annually, doing “whatever it takes” to make the Government’s Rwanda program for asylum seekers effective.Can Rishi Sunak Unite Divided Tories?As Rishi Sunak was named the new PM and leader of the Conservatives, he addressed the powerful backbench 1922 committee on Monday, stressing the importance of Tory unity in the weeks ahead, saying, “we’re united behind the policy and now cannot afford the indulgence of division over personality”.In the wake of Tory in-fighting that defined the recent weeks, Conservative backbenchers from the European Research Group to the One Nation Caucus pledged to support their new PM.Jake Berry, the Conservative Party chairman, urged colleagues to set their differences aside, underscoring: “Now is the time for the whole party to come together and unite four-square behind Rishi, as he gets on with the vital work of tackling the challenges we face as a country. The time for internal debates is well and truly over.”Yet old party divisions remain and may put more than one spoke in the new PM’s wheel. After Boris Johnson’s last-minute withdrawal from the Tory leadership contest on Sunday, one supporter of the ex-PM accused Sunak allies of going after Johnson’s fan base.A member of Sunak’s campaign team admitted a concerted efforts to convince MPs to switch from endorsing Johnson to declaring support for the former chancellor, saying:Johnson reportedly remained unforgiving after Sunak dealt him a blow by quitting on July 5, in what was seen as a catalyst for the ex-PM’s forced resignation 20 days later. Accordingly, some Johnson supporters are reportedly calling for a general election in a bid to scupper Sunak before he has even started his tenure. According to Tory peer Zac Goldsmith, an election was “morally unavoidable”. Sunak, rejected by the Tory party membership in the previous race only 49 days ago, is predicted as facing an uphill battle to keep unity within his fractious ranks. “There is going to be a grassroots mutiny… He’ll be lucky if he has anyone left to campaign for him come 2024,” one insider was cited as warning.

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rishi sunak, rishi sunak prime minister, rishi sunak wife, rishi sunak budget, rishi sunak wife, rishi sunak video

What Are Rishi Sunak’s Origins?

What is Rishi Sunak’s Net Worth?

How Did Sunak From MP to PM?

What Policies is Rishi Sunak Famous For?

What Challenges Does Rishi Sunak Face as PM?

Can Rishi Sunak Unite Divided Tories?