Rishi Sunak faces missteps as he tries to revive Tories | World News

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has presented himself as a thorough and evidence-based person throughout his relatively brief political career, but there has always been a nagging question about the acuity of his political antenna.

The electoral campaign of the last five weeks has clearly shown that he does not have the instinctive side of some of his predecessors, such as Tony Blair or Boris Johnson.

Sunak's campaign has suffered several missteps since he announced the July 4 election date in pouring rain in late May, including suspending candidates mired in an election date betting scandal a week ago after Labor leader Keir Starmer urged him to do so. do it.

The biggest mistake that prompted him to apologize was his decision to leave earlier than planned on June 6 the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings in northern France.

Critics said the decision not to attend the international event that closed the commemorations was disrespectful to veterans and diminished the UK’s international reputation. Other world leaders including President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy were all in attendance. As was Starmer, the frontrunner to replace Sunak as prime minister.

Since then, Sunak has been unable to improve his Conservative Party's poll numbers, which have been depressed in recent years due to the actions of his two immediate predecessors.

First, Johnson was forced to resign after being accused of lying to parliament about coronavirus lockdown breaches in his Downing Street offices. Then, confidence in the Conservatives waned during the chaotic and traumatic 49 days of Liz Truss, whose unfunded tax cuts rattled financial markets and sent borrowing costs soaring.

Opinion polls suggest the Conservatives are at risk of losing power for the first time in 14 years.

The Conservatives badly needed to boost Sunak's leader endorsement, otherwise their leader-centric campaign risks reinforcing weakness rather than strengthening strength, said Rob Ford, a political scientist at the University of Manchester. However, Sunak's clumsy and error-strewn campaign completely failed to tip the balance of approval among the leaders.

It must be said that Sunak is not the most experienced campaigner. He has only been an MP since 2015 and he has never played a significant role, let alone on the front line, in a general election campaign.

Sunak became prime minister in October 2022, when he presented himself as a stable replacement for Truss. He reminded voters that he had warned Conservative Party members about the recklessness of Truss’s economic plan when he challenged her to succeed Johnson.

“I was right then when I warned about Liz Truss,” he said. “That's why you can all trust me now.

In replacing Truss after an uncontested leadership battle, Sunak became the first British leader of colour, the first Hindu to become prime minister and, at 42, the youngest leader in more than 200 years.

Sunak, now 44, has enjoyed a rapid rise to the top of the Tory ranks. He was plucked from nowhere four years ago to become head of the Treasury on the eve of the coronavirus pandemic.

In a few weeks, he had to unveil the most important economic support plan ever presented by a Chancellor of the Exchequer outside of periods of war.

Gentle, confident and comfortable with the evolution of modern technology, he was nicknamed Dishy Rishi and quickly became one of the most trusted and popular faces within the Johnson administration during the rigors of the pandemic.

As Treasury chief, Sunak was praised for putting in place a COVID-19 job retention plan that arguably saved millions of jobs. But it came at a cost, bringing the country's tax burden to its highest level since the 1940s.

It’s not something he’s particularly comfortable with. Sunak is instinctively a low-tax, small-state politician who idolises former prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

During his 20 months as prime minister, Sunak has struggled to contain divisions within his Conservative Party. Some want him to be tougher on immigration and bolder in cutting taxes, while others urge him to move more to the centre of the political stage, where British elections are historically won.

Sunak was born in 1980 in Southampton, on the south coast of England, to parents of Indian origin, both born in East Africa. His father was a family doctor and his mother ran a pharmacy, where he often helped manage the accounts.

He described how his parents saved to send him to Winchester College, one of the most expensive boarding schools in Britain. He then went to Oxford University to study politics, philosophy and economics, the degree of choice for future prime ministers.

He then earned an MBA at Stanford University, which proved to be a launching pad for his later career as a hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs in the United States. It was there that he met his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of the billionaire founder of the Indian tech giant. Infosys. They have two daughters.

According to the Sunday Times 2024 Rich List, the couple are the richest residents of 10 Downing Street, with an estimated fortune of £651 million ($815 million). They are even richer than King Charles III, a level of wealth that Labor leader Starmer says makes Sunak out of touch with the realities and daily struggles of working people.

Building on his wealth, Sunak was elected as a Conservative MP for Richmond, Yorkshire, in 2015. During the 2016 British referendum on Brexit, he supported leaving the European Union. When Brexit was unexpectedly won, Sunak enjoyed a meteoric rise that quickly took him to Downing Street.

He's not used to losing.

First published: June 27, 2024 | 12:42 p.m. EAST