Rishi Sunak’s immense wealth makes people shiver

A new prime minister too far from the facts of the British? In the midst of the cost of living crisis, Rishi Sunak’s vast fortune has begun to draw criticism from the opposition.

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Rishi Sunak, at the age of 42, became the first Prime Minister of Indian origin in the history of the United Kingdom, passing through elite schools and universities and Goldman Sachs, married to a millionaire, who is also the richest British leader in the country.

Sunak and his wife Akshata Murti’s fortune is estimated at 730 million pounds ($1.14 billion) in the latest Sunday Times Rich List. The couple own a luxury home in the Prime Minister’s Circle in northern England, a house in the upscale neighborhood of Kensington, and an apartment in Santa Monica, California.

A supporter of spending cuts to curb inflation rather than resorting to debt to support households, Rishi Sunak warned on taking office on Tuesday that he would make “difficult decisions” to deal with the economic crisis many Britons are experiencing on a daily basis.

“Sunak and his wife sit on a fortune of £730,000,000. That is twice the estimated wealth of King Charles III. Keep that in mind when he talks about making ‘difficult decisions” said Labor MP Nadia Waitumi.

The opposition made the new leader’s fortune a distinctive angle of attack, believing that his extremely wealthy lifestyle rendered him unable to comprehend the difficulties faced by the population.

“The new Prime Minister will protect the interests of the (richest) 1%,” former Labor opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn wrote on Twitter. “The 99% will pay.”

Born in southern England to parents of Indian descent, Rishi Sunak is the eldest son of a public health system general practitioner and pharmacist. He soon reached the elite by attending Winchester College, a very elegant boarding school for boys.

After studying at Oxford and before entering politics, he worked in finance, mainly at Goldman Sachs, and founded his own investment company.

The wealth he has accumulated during his career is unknown, but his wealth increased further when he married in 2009 Akshata Murti, the daughter of an Indian billionaire.

Already in April, when Mr. Sunak was finance minister, the revelation that his wife enjoyed privileged tax status sparked controversy as prices soared across the country. She had to give it up under pressure.

According to a survey by the Savanta Comres Institute, “rich” is the first word that comes to mind when asked about their new leader.

“You could say ‘rich’ in the UK is probably a derogatory term,” Chris Hopkins of Savanta Comris told AFP, adding that the words ‘professional’ and ‘smart’ were also mentioned.

He said that while most Britons were not aware of Sunak’s wealth before the controversy over his wife’s tax status, his fortune now risks being “hardly swallowed up” if he announces measures that do not affect him personally, but drain the family budget.

But to many observers, the problem lies not so much with his wealth as with his inability to comprehend the difficulties faced by ordinary humans.

As the former minister was campaigning for Downing Street, The Mirror wrote this summer, Mr Sunak was “failing miserably” to “understand and empathize with ordinary people whose lives depend on the decisions made by the Prime Minister”.

In a country where inequalities between social classes are more glaring than anywhere else, Rishi Sunak tries to play the card of the average Brit, repeating his wish that he worked in the family pharmacy as a teenager.

But some of his outings were spot on, as when he bragged, when he was younger, that he had no working class friends. Lately, opponents have mocked his expensive gadgets or Prada campaign shoes, and he appears to struggle to use a simple bank card.