Rishi Sunak was chosen by the deputies of the Conservative Party to replace Liz “the short” Truss at the head of the government in the midst of a strong economic, social and political crisis. Once the formalities of the transfer of control are completed, the billionaire will become the first immigrant of Indian origin to occupy 10 Downing Street. How long he will last in office is another story: he is the third prime minister in less than two months.
Sunak became the leader of the majority force in parliament, the Conservative Party, after former Prime Minister Boris Johnson withdrew from the primary last night and the only candidate left in the race, Penny Mordaunt, announced that she would not run either shortly before the nomination closed at 2 p.m. British time (10 in Argentina).
happy markets
Sunak is the candidate of the markets that had already given their verdict before the announcement: In the morning, before his almost certain victory, the pound had risen against the dollar and the euro. But the deadly divisions in the Conservative party, the opposition’s demand for general elections and the crisis raise questions about how long he will last in office.
Among those who supported Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, some Conservative MPs, such as Christopher Chope, warned that Sunak could not expect loyalty from anyone. after being crucial in the fall of the last two prime ministers. “We have a party that is totally divided, that is completely ungovernable. It’s the reason why Boris Johnson dropped out of the race because Sunak obviously wasn’t willing to back him if he won this primary. Boris Johnson had a mandate. Sunak does not have a mandate from the electorate. If you want to have our respect and support, the best way to achieve it is to obtain a mandate from the population and that is why we need a general election.Chop said.
The internal divisions of the conservatives are deep, they come from Brexit in 2016 and from before too. A journalist with undoubted “inside information”, Emily Sheffield, sister of former Prime Minister David Cameron, red-hot described the fragmentation of the ruling party. “There are pro-Brexit, former pro-European Union, Eurosceptics, ultras who want a model like Singapore, those who favor a model of social consensus, pro-Johnson and those who want to erase everything from the map, from the BBC to justice and alternative ideas and pro-diversity and anti-racism,” Sheffield wrote in the evening “Evening Standard.”
Sunak’s fortune
It is another obstacle. The new prime minister is richer than King Charles the Third and Queen Consort Camilla: was the first politician to appear in the list of “The Sunday Times” of the richest in the United Kingdom. With his wife, the billionaire heiress Akshata Murty, he has an estimated fortune of about 770 million dollars, double that of the King and Camila.
In the midst of the current crisis, this fortune is one of its many Achilles’ heels. In short, the question is how an owner of houses and mansions who spends about 16 thousand dollars a year on the maintenance of his pool can understand the problems of the population as a wholea good part of which lives in so-called energy poverty (spending 10% of their income on gas and electricity).
In April it was revealed that Sunak’s wife had stopped paying some 11 million pounds taking advantage of an obscure rule that favors millionaires, the “non dom”. Murty backed down and announced that she was not going to take advantage of her “non dom” status.
Add to this that Sunak was fined for taking part in one of the 10 Downing Street parties in the Partygate scandal that led to Boris Johnson’s resignation.
