Rishi Sunak Named the Next UK Prime Minister\

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Oct 24: India-origin Rishi Sunak is set to become the next prime minister of the United Kingdom, the third in seven months, after he was elected the leader of the ruling Conservative Party with tasked to steer the economically floundering nation days after his predecessor Liz Truss stepped down expressing inability to steer clear the country’s economy.

The former Treasury chief will be Britain’s first leader of colour, and faces the task of stabilising the party and country at a time of economic and political turbulence. He was elected the leader after the former prime minister Boris Johnson stepped out of the race and his only remaining rival Ms. Penny Mordaunt, conceded and withdrew on Monday.

Rishi Sunak is the third Prime Minister UK had in seven months. Liz Truss – who piped him to the post in the party’s internal election and succeeded Boris Johnson — quit on October 20 after only 45 days in office. Besides being the first prime minister of colour and the first India-origin PM, at 42 he will also be the youngest PM of UK.

Boris Johnson, who entered the race again last week cutting short a Caribbean holiday, ended his bid for the post on Sunday in a surprise decision. He said he would not be able to lead “a united party in parliament.” The other contender, Penny Mordaunt, failed to secure the crucial number required to contest the party’s internal election and dropped out of the race. Mr Sunak has the support of 142 members of the parliament – far above the 100-mark required to bag the top job.

“I want to fix our economy, unite our party and deliver for our country,” the Indian-origin former chancellor had said in a short statement. Liz Truss had quit the top post after her plan for a mini-budget – featuring massive unfunded tax cuts – spooked markets.

Britain is facing an economically toxic combination of recession and rising interest rates. Critics blame the economic downturn on the Conservative Party and what they called its “series of miscalculations.” The pound rose briefly today as it became clear that Mr Sunak will be the next Prime Minister.

During the summer leadership campaign, Rishi Sunak had criticised Liz Truss’s tax-cutting agenda, saying he would only cut taxes once inflation had been brought under control. He had also outlined a plan to cut income tax from 20% to 16% by 2029.

Rishi Sunak has also backed the independence of the Bank of England and stressed the importance of government policy working alongside the central bank to tame inflation, not exacerbating it.

Mr. Sunak painted it as a matter of principle, saying he wanted to repair the “breakdown of trust” in politics. He also accused Truss of offering “fairy tales” by promising immediate tax cuts when he felt curbing soaring inflation was a bigger priority. “I would rather lose having fought for the things that I passionately believe are right for our country, and being true to my values, than win on a false promise,” Mr. Sunak had said earlier.

A wealthy Hindu descendant of immigrants from India and East Africa, Rishi Sunak was born in 1980 in Southampton on England’s south coast. Both his parents are of Indian descent who were both born in East Africa and migrated to the UK in the 1960s. Mr Sunak’s father, Yashvir Sunak, was a National Health Service general practitioner and mother, Usha Sunak, ran a chemist shop. “I grew up watching my parents serve our local community with dedication,” Mr Sunak says on his website.

Mr Sunak is married to Infosys chief Narayan He is married to Akshata Murthy, the daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy, and has two daughters Krishna and Anoushka.

He went to Winchester College, Oxford University and Stanford University. “I have been lucky to live, study and work internationally. I met my wife, Akshata, in California where we lived for a number of years before returning home. We have two daughters, Krishna and Anoushka, who keep us busy and entertained,” Mr Sunak says on his website. In his spare time, Mr Sunak says he enjoys keeping fit, cricket, football and movies.

Rishi Sunak took oath as MP from Yorkshire, on the Bhagavad Gita in the Parliament. He was the first UK parliamentarian to do so. Mr Sunak was first elected MP from Richmond (Yorks) constituency in 2015 and re-elected in 2017 and 2019. In July 2019, Mr Sunak was appointed Chief Secretary to the Treasury, having entered government service as the Minister for Local Government in January 2018. In February 2020, he had the honour to be appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer, a position he had the privilege to hold until July this year.

As Chancellor of the Exchequer under Boris Johnson’s leadership, Rishi Sunak lit Deepavali diyas at his residence on Downing Street. Rishi Sunak visits Bangalore with his wife and two children often to meet his in-laws.

During the campaigning for the PM’s post in the summer of 2022, Rishi Sunak faced criticism on various fronts including his lavish house, expensive suits, and shoes. Rishi shared a statement that the Bhagavad Gita often rescues him during stressful situations and reminds him to be dutiful.

Rishi Sunak has a net worth of over 700 million pounds and is very vested in properties in the UK. Apart from owning a mansion in Yorkshire, Rishi and his wife Akshata own a property in Kensington in central London.

Since entering the contest to be British prime minister, frontrunner Rishi Sunak has said little publicly about how he intends to run the country and how he would address multiple economic and political crises.

Britain is facing an economically toxic combination of recession and rising interest rates. The Bank of England is trying to tame double-digit inflation while consumers face rising costs and falling real incomes.

Britain has to restore its international financial credibility after outgoing leader Liz Truss’s plan for unfunded tax cuts and a costly energy price guarantee spooked the bond market last month and forced the Bank of England to intervene.

To balance a budget shortfall made worse by the rising borrowing costs that the crisis caused, the next prime minister will most probably have to oversee spending cuts and tax rises. A fiscal statement addressing this is due on Oct. 31.

That comes as the government faces pressure to help vulnerable households through a painful financial squeeze, with a jump in mortgage costs adding to rising food, heating and fuel prices caused by the war in Ukraine and other global factors.

In a statement issued on Sunday announcing his candidacy, Sunak said the country faced a “profound economic crisis.” As finance minister between February 2020 and July 2022, he set Britain on course to have its biggest tax burden since the 1950s. He also set out higher public spending but simultaneously promised more discipline and to cut waste.

During the summer leadership campaign he criticised Truss’s tax-cutting agenda, saying he would instead only cut taxes once inflation had been brought under control. At the time he outlined a plan to cut income tax from 20% to 16% by 2029.

But Sunak faced questions about his finances and those of his wife. Ms. Murty and the couple is worth 730 million pounds. In April 2022, it emerged that Murty did not pay U.K. tax on her overseas income. The practice was legal, but it looked bad at a time when Mr. Sunak was raising taxes for millions of Britons. Mr. Sunak also was criticised for holding on to his American green card, which signifies an intent to settle in the U.S., for two years after he became Britain’s finance minister.

Mr. Sunak was cleared of wrongdoing, but the revelations still hurt. He was fined by police, along with Johnson and dozens of others, for attending a party in the prime minister’s office in 2020 that broke coronavirus lockdown rules. Outrage over those parties at a time when Britons were forced to stay home contributed to Johnson’s downfall. Mr. Sunak has said he attended inadvertently and briefly.