Meet New UK’s Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak
Meet New UK’s Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.
Rishi Sunak, the new Prime Minister of United Kingdom was born in Southampton, on May 12, 1980, to parents of Punjabi Indian descent who migrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s.
Sunak attended Stroud School, a preparatory school in Romsey, Hampshire, and Winchester College, a boys’ independent boarding school, where he was head boy.
He read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at Lincoln College, Oxford, graduating with a first class in 2001. During his time at university, he undertook an internship at Conservative Campaign Headquarters.
In 2006, he bagged an MBA from Stanford University, where he was a Fulbright scholar.
While studying at Stanford, he met his wife, Akshata Murty, the daughter of N. R. Narayana Murthy, an Indian billionaire businessman who founded Infosys.
After graduating, Sunak worked as an analyst for the investment bank, Goldman Sachs, between 2001 and 2004. He later worked for hedge fund management firm the Children’s Investment Fund Management, becoming a partner in September 2006. He left in November 2009 to join former colleagues in California at a new hedge fund firm, Theleme Partners, which launched in October 2010 with $700 million under management.
Sunak and Murty married in 2009 and have two daughters together. The couple are the 222nd richest people in Britain, with a combined fortune of £730 million as of April, 2022.
He was elected into the House of Commons for Richmond in North Yorkshire at the 2015 general election, succeeding William Hague. Sunak was re-elected in the 2017 and 2019 general elections.
Sunak voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum on EU membership.He voted three times in favour of May’s Brexit withdrawal agreement and also voted against a second referendum on any withdrawal agreement.
He was appointed to Theresa May’s second government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government in the 2018 cabinet reshuffle.
Following May’s resignation, Sunak supported Boris Johnson’s campaign to become Conservative leader. After Johnson was elected Prime Minister, he appointed Sunak as Chief Secretary to the Treasury. He replaced Sajid Javid as Chancellor of the Exchequer after his resignation in the February 2020 cabinet reshuffle.
As Chancellor, Sunak was prominent in the government’s financial response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact, including the Coronavirus Job Retention and Eat Out to Help Out schemes. He resigned as chancellor on July 5, 2022, citing economic policy differences with Johnson in his resignation letter.
Sunak’s resignation, along with the resignation of Javid as Health Secretary, led to Johnson’s resignation.
In July 2022, he stood for the Conservative Party leadership election to replace Johnson. While he won the MPs votes, he lost the members’ vote to Liz Truss. Following Truss’ resignation amid a government crisis, Sunak won the October 2022 Conservative Party leadership election.
He is the first Prime Minister of colour in the United Kingdom, as well as the youngest since 1812.
Credit: NEWSPEAKONLINE.COM
