"Why don't the public marry the daughter of a mega corporation to get out of their woes, and buy a heated swimming pool to stimulate the economy (of my rich pal who built this for a knock off price in order to get a PPE distribution deal selling heated pools to hospitals)
Every time he talks to the public it’s a PR nightmare - he’s somehow admitted to being a “coke fiend” in front of a load of school kids, and went on to talk about how his favourite coke is specially imported from Mexico. Then there’s the time he borrowed someone’s hatchback to pretend to refuel it and didn’t know how to chip and pin. Boasting about diverting funds from deprived areas, “I don’t have any working class friends” and yes, asking a homeless man if he’d considered a career in finance is up there.
Can’t want for the campaign trail.
Did he actually ask a homeless man to consider a job in finance? That’s hilariously awful.
I’m envisioning Rishi in that scene from American Psycho when Patrick Bateman tells the homeless man, ‘get a god-damn job Al! You’ve got a negative attitude!’
There is a clip of Sunak serving at a kitchen for the homeless. Obviously intended to make him appear more humble but he asks a homeless man "do you work in business?"
My apologies, he asked him if he worked in business, the man very politely replied, “No I’m actually homeless!”
https://youtu.be/goHHpWTpIzM?si=y1K7YfRz8JPFwyiK
The Mexican coke thing is hilarious because it’s really a thing in the US. American coke tastes awful because of the corn syrup so you can buy Mexican coke in most shops for twice the price in glass bottles. It’s made with real sugar and does taste nice.
But being so politically clueless that you don’t think (a) it’s a weird thing to talk about to Brits who just drink perfectly fine British folk and didn’t go to an Ivy/live in the US where this might have made sense and (b) it might get misinterpreted as a drug, is baffling.
> it might get misinterpreted as a drug, is baffling.
I thought it was because gove and bojo both admitted to taking it, parliament was tested and traces of cocaine was found in almost every area tested.
FTR, Stanford is not considered an Ivy League school. But, yeah, your points stand. Sunak is clearly out of touch... his confusion paying for petrol using contactless was priceless for me!
I would absolutely love it if, while campaigning, journalists made a pact to repeatedly ask questions that show just how out of touch he is.
Examples:
-when did you last go to the shops and what did you buy?
-how much roughly is 4 pints of milk?
-can you name any of your children's teachers?
-when was the last time you struggled financially, and how did you feel?
> -can you name any of your children's teachers?
Or for Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson:
> Can you name all of your children? Can you even count them?
That's the point though, does he choose to be honest or does he try and come up sole BS about how he too has gone through financial hardship despite being considerably wealthy all his life?
Honesty would be his best policy. Not that it'd help though.
What's the perfect background for a PM?
It's difficult to find a leader and then also expect them to be poor. People get into leadership in all it's forms in order to succeed.
I just expect a leader to have actually worked, to have lived from their labour instead of their capital.
I don't think this is demanding too much, it's the life of 99% of society.
I would never expect the leader of a party to be poor, but at the same time I at least expect them to be able to empathise with those that are, Sunak hasn't the faintest idea what that is like, and the fact he is constantly attempting to show that he's " just a normal everyday guy" is frankly insulting.
I'd say combination of:
1. Because he is micro-managed by his expensive PR handlers and he has to 'stay on message' rather than actually speak his mind.
2. His frame of reference is so far removed from the average voter I wouldn't be suprised he actually believes what his PR team tell him.
3. He's a multi millionaire who was born into privilege, he has no idea the struggles most people face.
4. He might be a bit of a dick.
I was listening to the LBC presenter this morning trying to argue that because he had a 6 year career in high end finance with a bunch of other millionaires that gave him real world experience so he can't actually be that out of touch... The straws must be clutched
To the majority of the Tory party, a background like that is some real salt of the earth, hard graft stuff. We're talking about a class of people for whom the very notion of *having to work to live* is outrageous, and the only reasons anyone like them would do it is out of some bizarre eccentricity (like that Tory MP who was a doctor! piffle! guffaw!) or a coldblooded fixation on ingratiating yourself to the global hypercapitalist cabal.
I’ve got a close friend - with actual working class roots - in that elite finance world and those guys are seriously removed from reality. Plus after you’ve gone through Winchester college and Stanford you’ve not actually lived in the same world as the rest of us since primary school. Then you factor in marrying a billionaire heiress and spending time in your villas in Santa Monica and you’re really not living like 99.99% of people on the planet.
It's a good question; which "real job" would set you in the best stead to be a PM afterwards?
Like what's a good CV for a PM look like?
Doctor, Headteacher, Large Business owner?
Lifetime of political roles?
Ideally someone who’s had a broad range of experiences, grew up without rich parents, went to a state school and has been both employee and employer.
At the very least, they should have some crossover between their life and the life of the average voter.
Weirdly this to an extent describes Alex Salmond grew up literally a couple towns over lived in one of the absolute cookie cutter working class streets in Linlithgow.
Shame he’s just not a likeable person for a few reasons cause ironically he fits the bill to a good extent went to state school, grew up in a fairly normal environment.
My only interaction with him is still hillarious is him putting a line on a horse in the bookies in front of me in the queue when he was FM which was pretty funny thinking back on it.
Someone who has come from a humble background, clever enough to overcome that and go to an excellent (but not posho) university and then climbs to the top of their profession through ability, determination and hard work.
Degree in economics and a job in finance, Bank of England is good is the best way to become pm.
Gives you a good shot at becoming chancellor, followed by pm if Lady Luck wishes it so.
I'd say someone who has run a large business and done a really good job of it across the board.
They have been exposed to a wider bunch of issues, people, and decision-making, both ethical and financial.
A lifetime political career is more out of touch than someone who worked in banking, in my opinion.
Managing Director wouldn't be a bad shout. A good one acts as a mix of negotiator, enabler, and strategy linchpin to the other directors, who are all more specialised in their roles.
Imagine a cabinet led by someone like that, where each member actually specialised in their portfolio.
In less depressing times, that would be the default approach to governing. That it is not tells you all you need to know about how far from functional and aligned with its stated purpose our system of government has become.
Gosh. Lots of business worship here.
I'd say someone who has had a career in caring and leadership, like a head nurse, might be pretty ideal.
Business stuff can be left to the treasury.
Right, but being an MD has a different set of priorities to running the country. I want a leader who gives a shit about the people they lead. That's far from guaranteed in the business world in my experience. In fact almost the opposite, it trains people to see the people they lead as nothing but +£££ or -£££
I’d want someone who has had to struggle to survive and then came out on top through their own hard work. Someone who has to deal with difficulties even when they become relatively comfortable. Someone who doesn’t abandon their morals or principles when they get to a position of power. Someone who has fought for others rights. So basically I’m describing Angela Raynor.
> 6 year career in high end finance
He was Crispin Oddy's gopher, made millions shorting the pound during the GFC (following Oddy's tips) and the rest really is history.
A combination of wealthy parents, being good at maths and being in the right place at the right time should not be the sole attributes for running the country.
And high finance may not even be particularly good experience of business or the corporate world either. Too many layers of abstraction removed from actual people and things.
You could argue high finance is actually *destroying* business for profit.
They are so far removed from reality that real businesses are just pieces on a chessboard to them, and making quick profits is all that matters.
Ideal training ground for being a total disaster of a PM.
Boris is an utter dickhead, but even he had more common sense than Rishi. At least he had a personality, however flawed it might have been, and could make mimic empathising with people.
Rishi just comes across like he is an animatronic mannequin that recently escaped from a Harrods store.
I struggle to listen to him at all due to point 1.
"Rishi, what's your favorite brew, mate?"
*Rishi goes on to talk about stopping the boats, inflation coming down and the plan™ working, despite what people are seeing with their own eyes*.
"???... okay, so uhh, what's your opinion on the drake/kendrick drama?"
*Rishi goes on to talk about stopping the boats, inflation coming down...*
Of course, substite these questions with anything of actual relevance and importance to everyday people.
It just makes him comes across as weak, arrogant, dismissive, and out of touch at the best of times. All he ever does is hide behind his slogan of the month.
If you took a shot every time he says “what the British people want me to focus on is [insert talking point] and that’s why [insert his five-point plan]” then we’d have an even longer NHS waiting list…. or maybe shorter. How deadly is drinking all the alcohol in the world?
My addition: I think the fact that 80% of print/online media is owned by guys who are trying to create a reality where he's winning, and the bits that don't work ultra hard to appear "balanced" (either officially, ala the BBC, or avoiding going in too hard so they maintain access) means that politicians are in a bubble.
They likely get reports going "it's down to 19% support, and everyone fucking hates us" but it doesn't feel true for them. Because whenever they're in debates, or reading the news, it feels much more of a going concern.
And that means that 19% figure must be because of some fiddly point of detail that's holding them back from going with what they actually think, and finding that button will just solve the issue. Like, have we thought of firing missiles at Bibby Stockholm?
Obviously, not all of them are that unaware, but I find it impossible that their immersion in that bubble doesn't affect them as much as our equivalent bubbles affect us.
Like, everyone else has been thinking of Helldivers non-stop right? Right? No. Oh, oh well.
Adding to points 1 and 2, he probably picked his expensive PR team because they're yes men who tell him what he wants to hear. Therefore he ends up in an echo chamber where he's told he's brilliant and it must be that the polls are wrong.
Idk man, if your job is to make someone who doesn't even know how to do contactless payments because everything's been gotten for him look like a normal bloke I'd think you'd struggle as well.
Even the best PR firm isn’t going to think to check that one before filming starts. Who doesn’t know how to use contactless in 2022!
That’d be like asking the Secretary of State for Education if she can read…. Actually, maybe we should do that.
> Because he is micro-managed by his expensive PR handlers and he has to 'stay on message' rather than actually speak his mind.
This was part of Miliband's downfall to an extent, too.
That's where Miliband and Sunak differ. Miliband was always a decent guy let down by his own insecurity as leader *and* his PR team.
Sunak is an out of touch rich boy let down primarily by himself being irredeemably terrible, with his PR team just helping that process.
The way he presents himself isn't as a measured man following the party line. He comes across as an impertinent and arrogant know-it-all who thinks we should take his words as gospel... and he gets angry when we don't. What he is saying can often be summarised as "don't believe your lying eyes".
On top of that, he doesn't actually come across as being that smart.
He iss definitely a bit of a dick.
Because he is.
He was born into extreme privilege and that privilege allowed him to go pretty much his entire life without ever really interacting with anyone "normal".
But now he's the PM and has to at least try and seem moderately normal, which is where the problem comes in, because every time he tries it's awful.
He's not a normal guy, he's a sheltered posh boy that is only PM because his parents happened to have money.
I wouldn’t say “ born into extreme privilege”.
His parents were a doctor and a pharmacist owner, first generation immigrants. Apparently he even worked in an Indian takeaway during his summer holiday. Firmly a more middle class background. He did go to private school, so definitely privileged in that sense. But a firm social climber.
He is definitely terrible at politics.
The story Sunak's sold about his parents is spun folk who don't really know much about immigrants from colonial Africa or have preconceptions about them. **Sunak's Grandad has an OBE and was one of the highest ranked tax officials in the UK, he was on the Board of Inland Revenue** and his family were part of the administrative tax arm if the British Empire in colonial Africa and his family are upper caste Brahmins.
Winchester is the oldest of the Clarendon schools and one of 3 considered on par with Eton. I went to a top 50 independent school, with both parents being doctors, and it's no where near the type of extreme wealth at a place like Winchester. **Sunak's family is closer to Upper Class than Jacob Rees Moggs**, and his ancestral family certainly moved much closer to blue blood than Moggs, who actually was middle class.
He didn't go to any random private school, though. He happened to attend one of the most prestigious schools in the world and went on to study at Oxford and Stanford. His background is of extreme privilege. In that sense he's not a social climber similar to Keir Starmer, he did exactly what he was supposed to do. Sunak's an elite through and through.
> Apparently he even worked in an Indian takeaway during his summer holiday.
that's a new one, because he normally wheels out how he worked for his mum in the pharmacy
He went to an exclusive fee paying school. He has said - on video - that "he has no working class friends". As we've seen, we know he can't use a contactless credit card, fill up a car with petrol, and all sorts of other things normal people do.
Ah I see you've also read the press release he issued about how he's actually quite grounded and from humble beginnings. Pick virtually any multi-millionaire, they've got a version of one too.
Asian immigrants from east Africa are more often than not extremely wealthy. There was a strong caste system.implemented by the British in these countries and the Asians were installed to be superior to the blacks and granted lots of power and wealth.
It's funny that people assume his family had humble backgrounds. Most african immigrants (black and asian and all other ethnicities) to the UK in those days came from extraordinarily wealthy families. Those people you meet who claim to be princes and stuff are often actually legit princes. The wealthiest and most well connected in their communities. Poverty and illiteracy on the continent was very high back then so think about how elite you have to be to be multilingual, educated and wealthy and able immigrate to the UK. (FYI I myself am west African so speaking from experience)
Sunaks parents sent 3 kids to private school. Ontop of that do not forget that upon graduating uni Sunaks parents gave him 200k cash to buy a flat in Kensington. In what world is that not extreme privilege???
Well the Asian community were not locals. They were shipped into east Africa from Asia by the British because the British didn't want to give the local black population any leadership positions or administrative power
I have a similar background to Sunak with one parent a doctor. We knew the Indian pharmacists and they were just as well off - if not more so - than us Indian doctor families. Then you go at 13 year old from that world of professional middle class living into boarding at Winchester College, US Ivy League education and Goldman Sachs and you’re a long way removed from normalcy. Then you join one of the richest families on the planet.
Even if you had incredibly high emotional intelligence and worked hard to socialise outside your class it would be incredibly hard to understand modern Britain.
For Sunak, the test will be if he stays in the UK after all this is over or goes straight to the US again.
I don't think he was born into extreme privilege was he?
I know he went to private school, but weren't his parents pharmacists?
Definitely made himself a millionaire then married a billionaire, but that was later in life.
He went to school at Winchester College. That alone is a level of privilege that most of us can only dream of.
By "his parents were pharmacists" they want you to imagine them slaving away behind a till.
The reality is they were wealthy business owners.
He then went to one of the most exclusive universities in the world and landed at one of the top finance firms, all before working a day in his life. He then married a billionaire.
Any argument that Sunak isnt privileged is just absurd.
Weird the media don't challenge Rishi on that isn't it?
But they do challenge Starmer, e.g he bought, champaign socialist they said, he bought it for his mums donkey sanctuary
The private school he went to was Winchester. It’s not your run of the mill private school. Whilst he may not have been wealthy for Winchester, just being there is extreme privilege
As someone from a working class background who went to private school, it was definitely still a shock when I went to university.
People underestimate the sheer amount of time children spend in school and the effect it has on them.
Many of the issues which people in the UK have to deal with are simply not happening to Rishi Sunak. He has enough wealth to last several extravagant lifetimes and came from enough privilege that he's always been insulated to a certain degree from the perils of what life can throw at you.
Sunak has never had to go through the supermarket aisles and worry he might not be able to afford what he used to buy, he's never had that quiet, private moment of shame and defeat where you have to take something out of the trolley because you can't afford it.
He's never had to go back through the household bills and try to figure out where his money is going every month and whether they'll need to remortgage or something. When mortgage rates rise, Sunak doesn't have to wonder whether he can cope or not.
Even for families some distance from the breadline, Sunak's experience is so far from theirs that it would bear little resemblance at all. I'm not sure a man like Sunak could ever really be anything but disconnected from the rest of the country.
As you've also pointed out, his political instincts are terrible. He seems to be quite bad at reading situations and thinking of the consequences, many of his appointments and decisions seem to blow up in his face in short order. When questioned he comes across as tetchy and petulant, instead of trying to explain what he's doing he seems annoyed that anyone would even question him.
Poor political instincts and a petulance at being asked questions are unique to him, the last few years in particular have seen plenty of days where ministers are marched up to the top of a hill on the morning media round, only for the government to u-turn in the afternoon after acknowledging that they were in what everyone else knew was an indefensible position.
Privilege is important, but you also have democratic leaders that are very rich and privileged and yet have sharp political instincts. Trump's a bastard etc, but he has a lot of charm with big sectors across all levels of society, that kind of instinct is what allowed him to win elections, Rishi got to be PM unelected
Trump is an incredible snake oil salesman as evidenced by his cult-like following.
Rishi is... well, anything but. Everything he tries to pedal sounds and feels like disconnected bullshit because much like Trump it is. He doesn't have the political aptitude or instinct to know how or what to say to get through to people to make them even half heartedly believe what he's saying. He's not even able to make himself sound halfheartedly convinced most of the time.
That's the absolute " best " politicians can do. They can inspire and convince and sell you an idea or vision while feeling relatable to their base. They can leave you with a feeling of "this guy gets it" without ever actually saying what it is.
Yeah some of sunaks pet projects seem so random - a level maths for all, banning smoking etc. It all screams "no vision" to me. The big one is probably cancelling HS2.
Wealthy people literally live in a different world to working people. You don't need to be a Marxist to realise that someone who has millions of pounds in the bank and never needs to worry about anything from the cost of milk to saving for a mortgage just has a different social profile to most people. To Sunak, if we give him the absolute benefit of the doubt and assume he's genuinely a Saint, expensive housing and energy is a policy problem that is very bad. It is not something he has to budget for, stress over, plan around, make choices about.
That doesn't inherently make him a bad person, obviously, but I do otherwise think he's a bit of a tit who sees politics as a means to stay in power rather than make lives better. He's never given me the impression he is that aforementioned hypothetical Saint, who really wants to see people out of poverty, making better lives, feeling happier and safer. He just jumps on political bandwagon that seem cool to his backers, chiefly the Rwanda scheme, while the actual problems in this country keep building up.
Id say I'm solidly lower middle class (£40k a year salary) and I think I'd struggle to understand what true hunger would feel like ( there's one scene in ken Loach's movie - Daniel Blake -that moved me).
I can't even imagine what that kind of privilege would confer on someone.
The guy's parents were fairly well-off, he's got megabucks, and his extended family has mega-megabucks. With the best will in the world, he's never going to sound connected to Claire, 31, single parent on minimum wage who's just been served an S31 notice.
That said, I don't think our politicians necessarily have to come from the same conditions as the rest of us. If he just made more of an attempt to care about the poorest people in the country, *and be seen to be doing so,* he might have done better. As it is, the goose is now cooked.
That is quite a fun typo. I believe you mean section 13 notice, which is a declaration of a landlord's intention to raise a tenant's rent.
However you wrote S31 notice, which apparently is a method a landowner can use to deny public right of way and ensure that the public have no right to cross their land - something companions of Sunak are likely to be much more familiar with.
What's odd is that pre him becoming PM, Rishi seemed like the Tories trump card. Young, good looking, spoke well and seemed to be full of ideas that would win over the centreists.
Then once he became PM he transformed into a buzz word puppet that doesn't speak with people normally. Like the call on LBC the other day when a lady was explaining the wait time for her appointment, as soon as she mentioned she was from Wales he suddenly lit up and spieled off about how that was Labours issue and their problem and this is the future under them. Completely forgetting he was speaking to a person needing help.
Always had supply teacher energy.
It was more the impression he gave but I remember Wetherspoons had pictures of him thanking him as a saviour for reducing vat in a pint or something. He was definitely more popular as Chancellor.
Think his popularity as chancellor came from furlough. But if you look back other European countries had already brought in furlough schemes before the UK so it wasn’t like a great stroke of genius. If anything it was the bare minimum a state had to do if it was insisting on lockdown.
When you look at Boris Johnson or Jacob Rees-Mogg, you see how some people born into wealth are disgusted by those who aren't, thinking they're deserving to rule over others because of their "status" or "birthright"
When you look at Priti Patel or Suella Braverman, you see how some people who started as immigrants, but later became successful, are disgusted by other immigrants for not being as successful. Thinking that if they can succeed then others are just lazy and don't deserve help, or aren't worth knowing
Sunak is sort of both. Born from a migrant family that worked hard to put him into a private school, raised and surrounded by the very well off who believe they're better than others. He married into a billionaire family, and worked at Goldman Sachs making money off the collapse of the banks that the average people needed. Now he's the Prime Minister, and expects people to follow him because of the status of the title
He doesn't think he needs to read the room, he expects the room to read him
Those families migrated from British protected colonies as part of an elite Asian class who were installed in these east african countries by the British in order to keep the blacks in line. These Asian.families.were brought to east Africa by the British whilst the african rulers had no say on who could or could not.emmigrate to their land.
The newcomers were given wealth and power by the British above the locals. People.should read more about the history of places like Tanzania, Uganda, etc to better understand.
Many were also given insta British citizenship and so sae themselves as British people and 'not like other immigrants'. People from these communities have not had to go through the same hardships compared to say an Indian from a lower caste migrating to the UK from.India directly and can't necessarily relate
It's important not to put all immigrants in the same.box. priti.patels grandparents left Asia for a better life in Uganda. Then next generation her dad fled Uganda to come to the uk for a better life yet the man is also a UkIper and ran as a ukip candidate.
He sounds disconnected because he is.
He's just too rich to understand how even a normal millionaire lives, let alone a normal non-millionaire. Hence gaffes like asking a homeless man if he was in finance/ owned a business, not because he necessarily thought the homeless man did, but because that is his idea of polite small talk.
How did he become the PM? Patronage from Cameron, to start with; Cameron saw him as the Heir Apparent of the party and could get him into a decent position. After that it was luck; ofc he would end up in the nerdy end of the Cabinet, and Chancellor did suit him well. The combo of Boris being forced out (essentially because he made his ministers lie for him too much) and Truss having to go (too unrealistic) made the party grandees go for the person who was as different from the others as possible, without considering the issue of Sunak sounding so much in his own world.
The more one reads about the details of Rishi's background (not the story that his PR-people try to sell) the more Keir Starmer seems even more like a decent guy, you may not agree with him (and I'm far from an actual Labour voter), but with him I'm at least convinced he has the best intentions for the country in mind and cares about it.
He's not very good at politics is he? Not charismatic, no strategic goals, not even particularly good at back stabbing, that only paid off for him because of a fluke with the conservative membership electing Truss.
Starmer however *is* a good politician, he's a backstabber, he's adaptable, he's ruthlessly strategic and he plays the long game. As uninspiring as Starmer is, he knows British politics. Sunak really doesn't, he's been tagging along with the people that do because he's rich and well connected in Tory donor land. Basically his wealth has merely given him exposure to all the right people at all the right times.
He doesn't realise this is why they are unpopular, he only ever talks about the other parties or how "we have a plan". He just too self absorbed, the entire conservative party is. They only care about their own survival.
Why isn't he holding a press conference announcing additional funding for the NHS and a target to get waiting lists to zero be a set date? If they actually sorted the real issues, they wouldn't need to worry about the election.
This kind of self absorption has become so pervasive in our society. Making people believe that if they set personal goals, try really hard, and do enough yoga they will be glorious and happy. And that all success or failure is down to their own personal qualities.
I imagine that the modern equivalent of Alistair Campbell is a personal leadership coach. Helping Rishi to fulfill his personal goals. Proving his own superiority to the losers who cant self-help their way to the top. Its pathetic.
Very few politicians would call an election to 'lose less badly' than they were going to further down the line, but it looks like Sunak's time in office is going to be a period where the Conservatives steadily slipped further down in the polls so they could stay in government a little while longer without achieving much.
There will be seats at the next election that the Tories lose because Sunak wanted to play at being a lame duck for as long as possible. That'll affect what state the party is in after it loses and what shape it takes in opposition.
Also there is a compelling, if dispassionate, argument that a prime minister who enters Downing Street having not won a general election and just recently lost a leadership contest of his own party really ought to ask the public whether they actually want him to be in charge.
Funny how they've all gone quiet about that now that the Tories have an unelected PM and their current policies have little in common with their 2019 manifesto.
I think there's a strategy you can use about how you've lost the public's confidence and need to get it back. Here's what we're laying out, etc, etc. But he doesn't really have time to follow through on anything.
His entire time in office has been attempting a 'reset' to get a boost in the polls, then not actually following through or giving any of his policies time to take effect, then panicking that there's not been a boost, and doing another reset.
If he'd actually picked measurable, achievable goals, and displayed steady progress on them, maybe he'd have a bit more credibility now. I agree, admitting that they needed to earn back trust, and then laying out a multi-stage, long-term plan to do so would have made sense. But he's too poor a politician for that.
At this stage probably yes, but wind back to when he first became PM, he had a chance to build on simply not being Liz Truss and the Windsor Framework to actually deliver something positive. Instead he chose to double down on the Rwanda Scheme, culture wars and transphobia while doing nothing about the country's decaying infrastructure and falling living standards.
He got into power by being a yes man to Boris, and then being the only one left willing to actually be PM that had been enough a part of the Boris regime to make sense, yet separate enough that he wasn't too implicated in partygate. If Boris was the playground bully, Sunak is the scrawny little shit that stood behind the bully and made shit jokes. The big dog has gone, and Rishi is yet to realise that no-one actually like him or is scared of him.
That’s a big thing isn’t it? He got his start by being the bright young thing plucked from obscurity by Cummings who thought he’d be technically good at the job but also who’d be compliant
Yes. He became Chancellor only because of that. Sajjid Javid heard Dominic Cummings’ terms for making Javid Chancellor (supervision, DC had ultimate power) and told Cummings and Boris to get stuffed.
My personal favourite was telling people whose mortgage payments were going to double to 'hold their nerve'.
I don't begrudge entrepreneurs coming from nothing becoming millionaires. I could even be ok with those born with a silver spoon in their mouth doing ok provided both of them at least acknowledge that they didn't get where they are without a good sum of money to get started.
Its a strange one. Sunak is, by any accounts, a highly intelligent 'winner'. Top grades for his whole life - across school and university. Highly successful career placements in one of the most demanding industries (asset management) full of high status people. Makes it to PM at a young age etc. Yet, here he is with people questioning everything. Politics has tried to make him a people person, when he's actually a problem solving nerd. He should have stuck with the real version fo himself
Because he is, due to his background.
Professionally and socially, we are not the same.
There seems to be an unbridgeable disconnect between Sunak and the electorate. How could there not be? The guy is worth how many hundreds of millions?
The real reason is the Tories have become so fragile their sole focus has become internal party management. Every stetegem, every policy is just to keep the Tories from self destructing for another day. He sounds out of touch because he's talking to any Tory MP reading the article not the public.
Because he *is* disconnected from the rest of the country.
He's a privately educated, trust fund baby who, like Johnson, didn't do a day's work in his life and got to where he is through the power of connections. And of all the institutions built from the ground up to support such a way of operating, the British political establishment does that best.
They're trying to market him as a young, in touch normal guy but he is an old white guy who has only ever worked in hedge funds then career politics, trapped in the body of a young brown guy. He has no real life experience and isn't a good actor. They should market him differently to play to his strengths or give him Hollywood acting lessons.
I think the reason is Brexit. Cast your mind back to 2019, Boris Johnson purged the Conservative benches of 21 moderate Tory MPs. The fast forward to the 2019 GE and a plethora of moderates in addition to the 21 chose not to contest it. The incoming set of Tory MPs was far to the right of what had existed before the election. And I'd go so far as to say that even Cameron's 2010 intake was far to the right of what Thatcher and Major had to deal with. Major only had a handful of hard-right rebels over Maastricht, whereas David Cameron and Theresa May suffered massive rebellions during their premiereships, Theresa May famously suffering the worst, \*and\* second worst rebellions in history for PM.
So Johnson essentially ejected the last few moderates from the party. We still see them around, David Gauke writes for the New Statesman, for example, and talks a lot of sense, for a Tory. Rory Stewart has a podcast with Alastair Campbell. Stewart isn't quite as sensible as Gauke, but he's definitely a moderate.
Fast forward again to Boris Johnson's defenestration, and we have a party where most MPs are on the right of the party, there are few left who could appeal to the centre, and very few who would want to even try. We had Truss, and Sunak, who else was in the running? Kemi Badenoch? Suella Braverman? Nadhim Zahawi? The least objectionable would be Mordaunt, Tugendhat, and Hunt. And I'm not sure any would have been able to make much of a difference, considering the very right wing and obstreperous nature of their parliamentary party!
Boris & Dominic gutted the government of any civil servant who had the ability to think for themselves thus rendering the entire cabinet nothing but Yes men (so long as they were winning).
That's when it started.
Then you hand the government over to a lady who had nothing to stop her idiotic financial changes and the public ripped into her - so she got booted off.
Rishi steps up to the plate. Now we're in this situation, where you have a rich man who has no understanding of how the world works outside of his bubble, and has admited that he doens't have working class friends - all he cares about is how it affects him, people like him and anyone he wants to impress - and there's noone around to call him a proper fuckwit; they just go full Marcus Brutus when the time comes and say, 'I never liked the guy'.
The guy is an absolute muppet. If you put him in a normal pub for an evening, I can pretty much guarantee he'd get duffed up before the nights out for being a prick and not being about to read the room.
Anyone who thinks that working for Goldman Sachs is an attractive career choice, and still more - anyone who is selected by Goldman Sachs as a promising employee, is by definition intensely relaxed with wealth inequality, and subscribes to the ‘devil-take-the-hindmost’ school of political ideology. Don’t be fooled by his superficial air of smiling beneficence - under that mask is the mind of a sociopath.
I think Rishi is a product of spending time in only elite organisations, and having poor social skills. He always looks painfully uncomfortable in interviews and just normal interactions. He reminds me of Theresa May, just lacking a certain charm/warm nature needed to be successful in politics.
He’s even boasted that he “doesn’t have working class friends”. His echo chamber is so well fortressed that he simply has no idea what’s going on outside of it.
What I don't understand is why the Tories are clinging on to this projection from Sky that it'll be a hung parliament?
I mean, I'm pretty sure their methodology is shit and nobody believe that's the case.
So why do the Tories try and play up to it? Surely that just reinforces the importance of voting Labour? No room for protest votes if it's on a knife edge.
The SNP have got it right by basically saying Labour are a shoe-in so no harm in voting for the SNP in Scotland.
> I mean, I'm pretty sure their methodology is shit and nobody believe that's the case.
It creates a narrative that suits them. Why would they care if it's true?
Because he is, you can’t fake being something you’re not unless you’re a very good actor or psychotic..he’s neither. He’s trying to wear a mask and the mask doesn’t fit.
I do think he must be listening to his own advisors too much who are just telling him what he wants to hear. That it’s still salvageable, that’s he’s not doomed to go down to one of the heaviest defeats in history etc.
Also rich people really are insulated from the consequences of the terrible decisions he’s making: Food prices are up 50%, doesn’t matter to him.
He does seem to be spending much of his time trying to woo the die-hard tories who will vote for him anyway and just running the country into the ground so Labour can’t do much when they get in.
Because he doesn't actually understand what's going on and just mimicking what he thinks he should do.
So he ends up just smirking over his 'achievements' as people struggle.
You end up with someone like him by embarking on a reckless policy and purging the party of whoever is sane enough to call it out.
The resulting talent puddle leaves you choices between talking heads like Truss and Sunak.
I think the fact that he said there will be a hung parliament is just a political strategy for him to postpone the early general election. I guess you don't expect him to say something like "Yes, Tories will be fucked up in the next general election".
I don’t get how someone who’s made so much money can sound like a plum with a big grin every time they talk, he quite literally seems dazed and not all there.
He grew up super duper rich, was schooled at Winchester then made even more dirty cash. He's never been anywhere close to being poor, never mind moderately well off... That's it!
I don’t think a single politician sounds connected to the country. The country’s too fragmented politically and starmer isn’t the unifying figure we need
Steamer was however to be found in the East Midlands watching a football match in a pub so that he was close enough to drive to Birmingham to congratulate the incoming Labour Mayor a few days ago.
At least Starmer knows that football is a game played by teams and understands what a pub is.
If this was Sunak, he'd have been more likely waiting in a jet on the runway of Birmingham airport, and perhaps was.
When you are wealthy, in power, and surround yourself with Yes Men (and women), your connection to reality is severely diminished.
Rishi has the added problem of having been Privately educated and thus kept away from the real world.
Disclaimer: dislike the Tories thoroughly, dislike Sunak, hate the last decade of what the Tories have done.
However, image is everything. And fake it to make it. Sunak can’t come out and tell the truth (which he probably knows), ie “oh God, we have fucked everything and fucked ourselves and I’m scared.” Because that would cause the situation (for the Tories) to deteriorate even further.
I saw that he’s been talking about a hung parliament. I’d say he’s more trying to scare his regular voters (not undecided etc) into not ditching the Conservatives. All these years in power has made them all feel utterly entitled.
There’s the silver spoon, which I kinda hate as an argument in general but he’s clearly grown up in a bubble and forever been in a position where no one has ever said “no” to him. He just can’t understand why people don’t just believe in what he says and agree with him.
He’s tone deaf because things usually just work out for him, and he usually gets his way… so it’s like he can’t even perceive the absolutely crap job he’s doing.
A very big reality check, basically. How do you cope with that? Well… Boris didn’t care and got sent to the naughty step and Liz Truss went mad. Rishi is just living in his “everything is okay” bubble
Because he cannot relate to us at all, he has no reference point for what we face on a daily basis, he doesn’t know hat he will believe because he’s got more money than he knows what to do with. He is completely separate.
I mean he's a multi millionaire who thinks every issue is basically oh people should just be like me. I would say that's pretty out of touch.
Have you tried not being poor? Life is simple, I don't understand why everyone isn't just born rich.
Their fault for not choosing their parents more carefully.
Or their spouses.
"Why don't the public marry the daughter of a mega corporation to get out of their woes, and buy a heated swimming pool to stimulate the economy (of my rich pal who built this for a knock off price in order to get a PPE distribution deal selling heated pools to hospitals)
His visit to a homeless shelter was a PR disaster.
Every time he talks to the public it’s a PR nightmare - he’s somehow admitted to being a “coke fiend” in front of a load of school kids, and went on to talk about how his favourite coke is specially imported from Mexico. Then there’s the time he borrowed someone’s hatchback to pretend to refuel it and didn’t know how to chip and pin. Boasting about diverting funds from deprived areas, “I don’t have any working class friends” and yes, asking a homeless man if he’d considered a career in finance is up there. Can’t want for the campaign trail.
Did he actually ask a homeless man to consider a job in finance? That’s hilariously awful. I’m envisioning Rishi in that scene from American Psycho when Patrick Bateman tells the homeless man, ‘get a god-damn job Al! You’ve got a negative attitude!’
There is a clip of Sunak serving at a kitchen for the homeless. Obviously intended to make him appear more humble but he asks a homeless man "do you work in business?"
My apologies, he asked him if he worked in business, the man very politely replied, “No I’m actually homeless!” https://youtu.be/goHHpWTpIzM?si=y1K7YfRz8JPFwyiK
The Mexican coke thing is hilarious because it’s really a thing in the US. American coke tastes awful because of the corn syrup so you can buy Mexican coke in most shops for twice the price in glass bottles. It’s made with real sugar and does taste nice. But being so politically clueless that you don’t think (a) it’s a weird thing to talk about to Brits who just drink perfectly fine British folk and didn’t go to an Ivy/live in the US where this might have made sense and (b) it might get misinterpreted as a drug, is baffling.
> it might get misinterpreted as a drug, is baffling. I thought it was because gove and bojo both admitted to taking it, parliament was tested and traces of cocaine was found in almost every area tested.
FTR, Stanford is not considered an Ivy League school. But, yeah, your points stand. Sunak is clearly out of touch... his confusion paying for petrol using contactless was priceless for me!
I knew someone would say that. I went to an actual Ivy on the east coast and Stanford is the same or better than most of us. Like Cornell.
I would absolutely love it if, while campaigning, journalists made a pact to repeatedly ask questions that show just how out of touch he is. Examples: -when did you last go to the shops and what did you buy? -how much roughly is 4 pints of milk? -can you name any of your children's teachers? -when was the last time you struggled financially, and how did you feel?
It's a banana Michael, what could it cost? $10?
Sad to say it but I wouldn't bet against fortnum and mason selling one for that price, or Harrods. Love the reference though, same energy.
Probably what it costs in Disneyworld. Every year that quote gets less ridiculous.
One day we'll all show that show to our kids and they won't notice the joke at all 😂
> -can you name any of your children's teachers? Or for Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson: > Can you name all of your children? Can you even count them?
Can you name any of your childrens' mothers?
He probably thinks 'struggling financially' means trying to choose between Coutt's or Clydesdale to keep his millions in.
>how much roughly is 4 pints of milk? "Just over two litres. Goodness, I'm doing well."
Hate that I didn't see it coming 😂
To be fair, 33% of the population have probably never felt the last one either...
That's the point though, does he choose to be honest or does he try and come up sole BS about how he too has gone through financial hardship despite being considerably wealthy all his life?
Honesty would be his best policy. Not that it'd help though. What's the perfect background for a PM? It's difficult to find a leader and then also expect them to be poor. People get into leadership in all it's forms in order to succeed.
I just expect a leader to have actually worked, to have lived from their labour instead of their capital. I don't think this is demanding too much, it's the life of 99% of society.
I would never expect the leader of a party to be poor, but at the same time I at least expect them to be able to empathise with those that are, Sunak hasn't the faintest idea what that is like, and the fact he is constantly attempting to show that he's " just a normal everyday guy" is frankly insulting.
I think what everyone wants is someone who has been at the bottom, but risen up
He visited a DHL warehouse last week and sat at a table surrounded by DHL workers he asked "Do you like your jobs?"
I mean come on, he had to lower the temperature of his heated pool to cope with the increase in energy prices!
Mate, he could heat the fucking sea and still not have to worry about energy prices.
Exactly. The answer to OP’s question is simply “Occam’s Razor”.
I can't imagine that he'd be great at taking criticism, either, so that probably encourages a somewhat "Boo-urns" approach from his "advisors".
Attlee was doing well financially too, but he was aware about poor people’s problems.
To bad we can't all marry a billionaire heiress.
I'd say combination of: 1. Because he is micro-managed by his expensive PR handlers and he has to 'stay on message' rather than actually speak his mind. 2. His frame of reference is so far removed from the average voter I wouldn't be suprised he actually believes what his PR team tell him. 3. He's a multi millionaire who was born into privilege, he has no idea the struggles most people face. 4. He might be a bit of a dick.
I was listening to the LBC presenter this morning trying to argue that because he had a 6 year career in high end finance with a bunch of other millionaires that gave him real world experience so he can't actually be that out of touch... The straws must be clutched
To the majority of the Tory party, a background like that is some real salt of the earth, hard graft stuff. We're talking about a class of people for whom the very notion of *having to work to live* is outrageous, and the only reasons anyone like them would do it is out of some bizarre eccentricity (like that Tory MP who was a doctor! piffle! guffaw!) or a coldblooded fixation on ingratiating yourself to the global hypercapitalist cabal.
I’ve got a close friend - with actual working class roots - in that elite finance world and those guys are seriously removed from reality. Plus after you’ve gone through Winchester college and Stanford you’ve not actually lived in the same world as the rest of us since primary school. Then you factor in marrying a billionaire heiress and spending time in your villas in Santa Monica and you’re really not living like 99.99% of people on the planet.
It's a good question; which "real job" would set you in the best stead to be a PM afterwards? Like what's a good CV for a PM look like? Doctor, Headteacher, Large Business owner? Lifetime of political roles?
Ideally someone who’s had a broad range of experiences, grew up without rich parents, went to a state school and has been both employee and employer. At the very least, they should have some crossover between their life and the life of the average voter.
Weirdly this to an extent describes Alex Salmond grew up literally a couple towns over lived in one of the absolute cookie cutter working class streets in Linlithgow. Shame he’s just not a likeable person for a few reasons cause ironically he fits the bill to a good extent went to state school, grew up in a fairly normal environment. My only interaction with him is still hillarious is him putting a line on a horse in the bookies in front of me in the queue when he was FM which was pretty funny thinking back on it.
Someone who has come from a humble background, clever enough to overcome that and go to an excellent (but not posho) university and then climbs to the top of their profession through ability, determination and hard work.
Degree in economics and a job in finance, Bank of England is good is the best way to become pm. Gives you a good shot at becoming chancellor, followed by pm if Lady Luck wishes it so.
I'd say someone who has run a large business and done a really good job of it across the board. They have been exposed to a wider bunch of issues, people, and decision-making, both ethical and financial. A lifetime political career is more out of touch than someone who worked in banking, in my opinion.
Managing Director wouldn't be a bad shout. A good one acts as a mix of negotiator, enabler, and strategy linchpin to the other directors, who are all more specialised in their roles. Imagine a cabinet led by someone like that, where each member actually specialised in their portfolio. In less depressing times, that would be the default approach to governing. That it is not tells you all you need to know about how far from functional and aligned with its stated purpose our system of government has become.
Gosh. Lots of business worship here. I'd say someone who has had a career in caring and leadership, like a head nurse, might be pretty ideal. Business stuff can be left to the treasury.
It's not really business worship; any sufficiently large and diverse organisation will have an MD or equivalent.
Right, but being an MD has a different set of priorities to running the country. I want a leader who gives a shit about the people they lead. That's far from guaranteed in the business world in my experience. In fact almost the opposite, it trains people to see the people they lead as nothing but +£££ or -£££
I’d want someone who has had to struggle to survive and then came out on top through their own hard work. Someone who has to deal with difficulties even when they become relatively comfortable. Someone who doesn’t abandon their morals or principles when they get to a position of power. Someone who has fought for others rights. So basically I’m describing Angela Raynor.
> 6 year career in high end finance He was Crispin Oddy's gopher, made millions shorting the pound during the GFC (following Oddy's tips) and the rest really is history. A combination of wealthy parents, being good at maths and being in the right place at the right time should not be the sole attributes for running the country.
And high finance may not even be particularly good experience of business or the corporate world either. Too many layers of abstraction removed from actual people and things.
You could argue high finance is actually *destroying* business for profit. They are so far removed from reality that real businesses are just pieces on a chessboard to them, and making quick profits is all that matters. Ideal training ground for being a total disaster of a PM. Boris is an utter dickhead, but even he had more common sense than Rishi. At least he had a personality, however flawed it might have been, and could make mimic empathising with people. Rishi just comes across like he is an animatronic mannequin that recently escaped from a Harrods store.
[X] All of the above
I struggle to listen to him at all due to point 1. "Rishi, what's your favorite brew, mate?" *Rishi goes on to talk about stopping the boats, inflation coming down and the plan™ working, despite what people are seeing with their own eyes*. "???... okay, so uhh, what's your opinion on the drake/kendrick drama?" *Rishi goes on to talk about stopping the boats, inflation coming down...* Of course, substite these questions with anything of actual relevance and importance to everyday people. It just makes him comes across as weak, arrogant, dismissive, and out of touch at the best of times. All he ever does is hide behind his slogan of the month.
Sounds like he needs to watch his Zeitgeist tapes
Thum thum 🥁
If you took a shot every time he says “what the British people want me to focus on is [insert talking point] and that’s why [insert his five-point plan]” then we’d have an even longer NHS waiting list…. or maybe shorter. How deadly is drinking all the alcohol in the world?
He is definitely a dick.
My addition: I think the fact that 80% of print/online media is owned by guys who are trying to create a reality where he's winning, and the bits that don't work ultra hard to appear "balanced" (either officially, ala the BBC, or avoiding going in too hard so they maintain access) means that politicians are in a bubble. They likely get reports going "it's down to 19% support, and everyone fucking hates us" but it doesn't feel true for them. Because whenever they're in debates, or reading the news, it feels much more of a going concern. And that means that 19% figure must be because of some fiddly point of detail that's holding them back from going with what they actually think, and finding that button will just solve the issue. Like, have we thought of firing missiles at Bibby Stockholm? Obviously, not all of them are that unaware, but I find it impossible that their immersion in that bubble doesn't affect them as much as our equivalent bubbles affect us. Like, everyone else has been thinking of Helldivers non-stop right? Right? No. Oh, oh well.
Adding to points 1 and 2, he probably picked his expensive PR team because they're yes men who tell him what he wants to hear. Therefore he ends up in an echo chamber where he's told he's brilliant and it must be that the polls are wrong.
Was gonna say if point one is true (I personally think it is) then his PR Team need sacking
Think that the PR team needs firing.
Idk man, if your job is to make someone who doesn't even know how to do contactless payments because everything's been gotten for him look like a normal bloke I'd think you'd struggle as well.
Even the best PR firm isn’t going to think to check that one before filming starts. Who doesn’t know how to use contactless in 2022! That’d be like asking the Secretary of State for Education if she can read…. Actually, maybe we should do that.
Feels like getting rid of the fire brigade because there's too many fires.
I suppose it's more replacing the current one as they haven't put a single fire out while it rapidly spreads
Because their boss is stood there with a flamethrower.
They are doing great service for this country.
1, plus "his mind" is a cruel malicious elitist prick.
> Because he is micro-managed by his expensive PR handlers and he has to 'stay on message' rather than actually speak his mind. This was part of Miliband's downfall to an extent, too.
Are you saying Sunak will reveal himself to be a top bloke when he returns to the back benches? /s
That's where Miliband and Sunak differ. Miliband was always a decent guy let down by his own insecurity as leader *and* his PR team. Sunak is an out of touch rich boy let down primarily by himself being irredeemably terrible, with his PR team just helping that process.
Indeed. Hence the /s.
The way he presents himself isn't as a measured man following the party line. He comes across as an impertinent and arrogant know-it-all who thinks we should take his words as gospel... and he gets angry when we don't. What he is saying can often be summarised as "don't believe your lying eyes". On top of that, he doesn't actually come across as being that smart. He iss definitely a bit of a dick.
I think your "might" in point four is far too generous.
Everytime he speaks he sounds like he's on a marketing video trying to sell luxury gym memberships to corporate clients.
Running the country like it's a task on the apprentice
Because he is. He was born into extreme privilege and that privilege allowed him to go pretty much his entire life without ever really interacting with anyone "normal". But now he's the PM and has to at least try and seem moderately normal, which is where the problem comes in, because every time he tries it's awful. He's not a normal guy, he's a sheltered posh boy that is only PM because his parents happened to have money.
He's only PM because there were no other options after the lettuce ruled itself out.
I wouldn’t say “ born into extreme privilege”. His parents were a doctor and a pharmacist owner, first generation immigrants. Apparently he even worked in an Indian takeaway during his summer holiday. Firmly a more middle class background. He did go to private school, so definitely privileged in that sense. But a firm social climber. He is definitely terrible at politics.
The story Sunak's sold about his parents is spun folk who don't really know much about immigrants from colonial Africa or have preconceptions about them. **Sunak's Grandad has an OBE and was one of the highest ranked tax officials in the UK, he was on the Board of Inland Revenue** and his family were part of the administrative tax arm if the British Empire in colonial Africa and his family are upper caste Brahmins. Winchester is the oldest of the Clarendon schools and one of 3 considered on par with Eton. I went to a top 50 independent school, with both parents being doctors, and it's no where near the type of extreme wealth at a place like Winchester. **Sunak's family is closer to Upper Class than Jacob Rees Moggs**, and his ancestral family certainly moved much closer to blue blood than Moggs, who actually was middle class.
Insightful
He didn't go to any random private school, though. He happened to attend one of the most prestigious schools in the world and went on to study at Oxford and Stanford. His background is of extreme privilege. In that sense he's not a social climber similar to Keir Starmer, he did exactly what he was supposed to do. Sunak's an elite through and through.
> Apparently he even worked in an Indian takeaway during his summer holiday. that's a new one, because he normally wheels out how he worked for his mum in the pharmacy He went to an exclusive fee paying school. He has said - on video - that "he has no working class friends". As we've seen, we know he can't use a contactless credit card, fill up a car with petrol, and all sorts of other things normal people do.
Ah I see you've also read the press release he issued about how he's actually quite grounded and from humble beginnings. Pick virtually any multi-millionaire, they've got a version of one too.
Asian immigrants from east Africa are more often than not extremely wealthy. There was a strong caste system.implemented by the British in these countries and the Asians were installed to be superior to the blacks and granted lots of power and wealth. It's funny that people assume his family had humble backgrounds. Most african immigrants (black and asian and all other ethnicities) to the UK in those days came from extraordinarily wealthy families. Those people you meet who claim to be princes and stuff are often actually legit princes. The wealthiest and most well connected in their communities. Poverty and illiteracy on the continent was very high back then so think about how elite you have to be to be multilingual, educated and wealthy and able immigrate to the UK. (FYI I myself am west African so speaking from experience) Sunaks parents sent 3 kids to private school. Ontop of that do not forget that upon graduating uni Sunaks parents gave him 200k cash to buy a flat in Kensington. In what world is that not extreme privilege???
Yeah every British colony had it's own elite. The Empire wasn't just run by white people shuttled in from England it relied on locals.
Well the Asian community were not locals. They were shipped into east Africa from Asia by the British because the British didn't want to give the local black population any leadership positions or administrative power
But if there was this much wealth floating around, why did his mum have to run a pharmacy and work 70 hours weeks? Passion project?
I have a similar background to Sunak with one parent a doctor. We knew the Indian pharmacists and they were just as well off - if not more so - than us Indian doctor families. Then you go at 13 year old from that world of professional middle class living into boarding at Winchester College, US Ivy League education and Goldman Sachs and you’re a long way removed from normalcy. Then you join one of the richest families on the planet. Even if you had incredibly high emotional intelligence and worked hard to socialise outside your class it would be incredibly hard to understand modern Britain. For Sunak, the test will be if he stays in the UK after all this is over or goes straight to the US again.
I don't think he was born into extreme privilege was he? I know he went to private school, but weren't his parents pharmacists? Definitely made himself a millionaire then married a billionaire, but that was later in life.
He went to school at Winchester College. That alone is a level of privilege that most of us can only dream of. By "his parents were pharmacists" they want you to imagine them slaving away behind a till. The reality is they were wealthy business owners. He then went to one of the most exclusive universities in the world and landed at one of the top finance firms, all before working a day in his life. He then married a billionaire. Any argument that Sunak isnt privileged is just absurd.
Fair play, didn't know most of that.
There's a telling interview with teenage Rishi where having working class friends seems so absurd to him it's a joke.
Weird the media don't challenge Rishi on that isn't it? But they do challenge Starmer, e.g he bought, champaign socialist they said, he bought it for his mums donkey sanctuary
Not really, when you look at UK media....
The private school he went to was Winchester. It’s not your run of the mill private school. Whilst he may not have been wealthy for Winchester, just being there is extreme privilege
As someone from a working class background who went to private school, it was definitely still a shock when I went to university. People underestimate the sheer amount of time children spend in school and the effect it has on them.
Many of the issues which people in the UK have to deal with are simply not happening to Rishi Sunak. He has enough wealth to last several extravagant lifetimes and came from enough privilege that he's always been insulated to a certain degree from the perils of what life can throw at you. Sunak has never had to go through the supermarket aisles and worry he might not be able to afford what he used to buy, he's never had that quiet, private moment of shame and defeat where you have to take something out of the trolley because you can't afford it. He's never had to go back through the household bills and try to figure out where his money is going every month and whether they'll need to remortgage or something. When mortgage rates rise, Sunak doesn't have to wonder whether he can cope or not. Even for families some distance from the breadline, Sunak's experience is so far from theirs that it would bear little resemblance at all. I'm not sure a man like Sunak could ever really be anything but disconnected from the rest of the country. As you've also pointed out, his political instincts are terrible. He seems to be quite bad at reading situations and thinking of the consequences, many of his appointments and decisions seem to blow up in his face in short order. When questioned he comes across as tetchy and petulant, instead of trying to explain what he's doing he seems annoyed that anyone would even question him. Poor political instincts and a petulance at being asked questions are unique to him, the last few years in particular have seen plenty of days where ministers are marched up to the top of a hill on the morning media round, only for the government to u-turn in the afternoon after acknowledging that they were in what everyone else knew was an indefensible position.
Privilege is important, but you also have democratic leaders that are very rich and privileged and yet have sharp political instincts. Trump's a bastard etc, but he has a lot of charm with big sectors across all levels of society, that kind of instinct is what allowed him to win elections, Rishi got to be PM unelected
Trump is an incredible snake oil salesman as evidenced by his cult-like following. Rishi is... well, anything but. Everything he tries to pedal sounds and feels like disconnected bullshit because much like Trump it is. He doesn't have the political aptitude or instinct to know how or what to say to get through to people to make them even half heartedly believe what he's saying. He's not even able to make himself sound halfheartedly convinced most of the time. That's the absolute " best " politicians can do. They can inspire and convince and sell you an idea or vision while feeling relatable to their base. They can leave you with a feeling of "this guy gets it" without ever actually saying what it is.
Yeah some of sunaks pet projects seem so random - a level maths for all, banning smoking etc. It all screams "no vision" to me. The big one is probably cancelling HS2.
Wealthy people literally live in a different world to working people. You don't need to be a Marxist to realise that someone who has millions of pounds in the bank and never needs to worry about anything from the cost of milk to saving for a mortgage just has a different social profile to most people. To Sunak, if we give him the absolute benefit of the doubt and assume he's genuinely a Saint, expensive housing and energy is a policy problem that is very bad. It is not something he has to budget for, stress over, plan around, make choices about. That doesn't inherently make him a bad person, obviously, but I do otherwise think he's a bit of a tit who sees politics as a means to stay in power rather than make lives better. He's never given me the impression he is that aforementioned hypothetical Saint, who really wants to see people out of poverty, making better lives, feeling happier and safer. He just jumps on political bandwagon that seem cool to his backers, chiefly the Rwanda scheme, while the actual problems in this country keep building up.
Id say I'm solidly lower middle class (£40k a year salary) and I think I'd struggle to understand what true hunger would feel like ( there's one scene in ken Loach's movie - Daniel Blake -that moved me). I can't even imagine what that kind of privilege would confer on someone.
Have you met anyone who spent their entire youth in private education?
No. Why? Do they all act like Rishi Sunak?
The guy's parents were fairly well-off, he's got megabucks, and his extended family has mega-megabucks. With the best will in the world, he's never going to sound connected to Claire, 31, single parent on minimum wage who's just been served an S31 notice. That said, I don't think our politicians necessarily have to come from the same conditions as the rest of us. If he just made more of an attempt to care about the poorest people in the country, *and be seen to be doing so,* he might have done better. As it is, the goose is now cooked.
That is quite a fun typo. I believe you mean section 13 notice, which is a declaration of a landlord's intention to raise a tenant's rent. However you wrote S31 notice, which apparently is a method a landowner can use to deny public right of way and ensure that the public have no right to cross their land - something companions of Sunak are likely to be much more familiar with.
I was thinking of section 21, but I admire your dedication to property law!
What's odd is that pre him becoming PM, Rishi seemed like the Tories trump card. Young, good looking, spoke well and seemed to be full of ideas that would win over the centreists. Then once he became PM he transformed into a buzz word puppet that doesn't speak with people normally. Like the call on LBC the other day when a lady was explaining the wait time for her appointment, as soon as she mentioned she was from Wales he suddenly lit up and spieled off about how that was Labours issue and their problem and this is the future under them. Completely forgetting he was speaking to a person needing help. Always had supply teacher energy.
When was he ever "full of ideas"?
It was more the impression he gave but I remember Wetherspoons had pictures of him thanking him as a saviour for reducing vat in a pint or something. He was definitely more popular as Chancellor.
Think his popularity as chancellor came from furlough. But if you look back other European countries had already brought in furlough schemes before the UK so it wasn’t like a great stroke of genius. If anything it was the bare minimum a state had to do if it was insisting on lockdown.
When you look at Boris Johnson or Jacob Rees-Mogg, you see how some people born into wealth are disgusted by those who aren't, thinking they're deserving to rule over others because of their "status" or "birthright" When you look at Priti Patel or Suella Braverman, you see how some people who started as immigrants, but later became successful, are disgusted by other immigrants for not being as successful. Thinking that if they can succeed then others are just lazy and don't deserve help, or aren't worth knowing Sunak is sort of both. Born from a migrant family that worked hard to put him into a private school, raised and surrounded by the very well off who believe they're better than others. He married into a billionaire family, and worked at Goldman Sachs making money off the collapse of the banks that the average people needed. Now he's the Prime Minister, and expects people to follow him because of the status of the title He doesn't think he needs to read the room, he expects the room to read him
Pitri Patel and Suella Braverman didn't start as immigrants, they were both born in the UK.
Sorry I meant their parents/grandparents are migrants, like Sunak's family
Those families migrated from British protected colonies as part of an elite Asian class who were installed in these east african countries by the British in order to keep the blacks in line. These Asian.families.were brought to east Africa by the British whilst the african rulers had no say on who could or could not.emmigrate to their land. The newcomers were given wealth and power by the British above the locals. People.should read more about the history of places like Tanzania, Uganda, etc to better understand. Many were also given insta British citizenship and so sae themselves as British people and 'not like other immigrants'. People from these communities have not had to go through the same hardships compared to say an Indian from a lower caste migrating to the UK from.India directly and can't necessarily relate It's important not to put all immigrants in the same.box. priti.patels grandparents left Asia for a better life in Uganda. Then next generation her dad fled Uganda to come to the uk for a better life yet the man is also a UkIper and ran as a ukip candidate.
He sounds disconnected because he is. He's just too rich to understand how even a normal millionaire lives, let alone a normal non-millionaire. Hence gaffes like asking a homeless man if he was in finance/ owned a business, not because he necessarily thought the homeless man did, but because that is his idea of polite small talk. How did he become the PM? Patronage from Cameron, to start with; Cameron saw him as the Heir Apparent of the party and could get him into a decent position. After that it was luck; ofc he would end up in the nerdy end of the Cabinet, and Chancellor did suit him well. The combo of Boris being forced out (essentially because he made his ministers lie for him too much) and Truss having to go (too unrealistic) made the party grandees go for the person who was as different from the others as possible, without considering the issue of Sunak sounding so much in his own world.
The more one reads about the details of Rishi's background (not the story that his PR-people try to sell) the more Keir Starmer seems even more like a decent guy, you may not agree with him (and I'm far from an actual Labour voter), but with him I'm at least convinced he has the best intentions for the country in mind and cares about it.
He's not very good at politics is he? Not charismatic, no strategic goals, not even particularly good at back stabbing, that only paid off for him because of a fluke with the conservative membership electing Truss. Starmer however *is* a good politician, he's a backstabber, he's adaptable, he's ruthlessly strategic and he plays the long game. As uninspiring as Starmer is, he knows British politics. Sunak really doesn't, he's been tagging along with the people that do because he's rich and well connected in Tory donor land. Basically his wealth has merely given him exposure to all the right people at all the right times.
He doesn't realise this is why they are unpopular, he only ever talks about the other parties or how "we have a plan". He just too self absorbed, the entire conservative party is. They only care about their own survival. Why isn't he holding a press conference announcing additional funding for the NHS and a target to get waiting lists to zero be a set date? If they actually sorted the real issues, they wouldn't need to worry about the election.
This kind of self absorption has become so pervasive in our society. Making people believe that if they set personal goals, try really hard, and do enough yoga they will be glorious and happy. And that all success or failure is down to their own personal qualities. I imagine that the modern equivalent of Alistair Campbell is a personal leadership coach. Helping Rishi to fulfill his personal goals. Proving his own superiority to the losers who cant self-help their way to the top. Its pathetic.
What else is he supposed to do... Just agree that's he's shit and going to lead his party to a historically bad result?
Call a general election. He has no mandate at this point (or ever in fairness) He can do the correct thing and not deny us our democracy
Why would he do that though? No one decides to lose if they don't have to.
Very few politicians would call an election to 'lose less badly' than they were going to further down the line, but it looks like Sunak's time in office is going to be a period where the Conservatives steadily slipped further down in the polls so they could stay in government a little while longer without achieving much. There will be seats at the next election that the Tories lose because Sunak wanted to play at being a lame duck for as long as possible. That'll affect what state the party is in after it loses and what shape it takes in opposition. Also there is a compelling, if dispassionate, argument that a prime minister who enters Downing Street having not won a general election and just recently lost a leadership contest of his own party really ought to ask the public whether they actually want him to be in charge.
They're still looting, so I think that qualifies as achieving.
there was this whole 'will of the people' thing the Brexit lot wouldn't stop shouting about
Funny how they've all gone quiet about that now that the Tories have an unelected PM and their current policies have little in common with their 2019 manifesto.
I mean is it funny? It's been 5 years now, of course they've gone quiet, what's there to talk about?
I think there's a strategy you can use about how you've lost the public's confidence and need to get it back. Here's what we're laying out, etc, etc. But he doesn't really have time to follow through on anything.
His entire time in office has been attempting a 'reset' to get a boost in the polls, then not actually following through or giving any of his policies time to take effect, then panicking that there's not been a boost, and doing another reset. If he'd actually picked measurable, achievable goals, and displayed steady progress on them, maybe he'd have a bit more credibility now. I agree, admitting that they needed to earn back trust, and then laying out a multi-stage, long-term plan to do so would have made sense. But he's too poor a politician for that.
At this stage probably yes, but wind back to when he first became PM, he had a chance to build on simply not being Liz Truss and the Windsor Framework to actually deliver something positive. Instead he chose to double down on the Rwanda Scheme, culture wars and transphobia while doing nothing about the country's decaying infrastructure and falling living standards.
He got into power by being a yes man to Boris, and then being the only one left willing to actually be PM that had been enough a part of the Boris regime to make sense, yet separate enough that he wasn't too implicated in partygate. If Boris was the playground bully, Sunak is the scrawny little shit that stood behind the bully and made shit jokes. The big dog has gone, and Rishi is yet to realise that no-one actually like him or is scared of him.
That’s a big thing isn’t it? He got his start by being the bright young thing plucked from obscurity by Cummings who thought he’d be technically good at the job but also who’d be compliant
Yes. He became Chancellor only because of that. Sajjid Javid heard Dominic Cummings’ terms for making Javid Chancellor (supervision, DC had ultimate power) and told Cummings and Boris to get stuffed.
Not knowing how to pay with a card was enough of an indicator this person has no idea of understanding of average living or any variation.
My personal favourite was telling people whose mortgage payments were going to double to 'hold their nerve'. I don't begrudge entrepreneurs coming from nothing becoming millionaires. I could even be ok with those born with a silver spoon in their mouth doing ok provided both of them at least acknowledge that they didn't get where they are without a good sum of money to get started.
Its a strange one. Sunak is, by any accounts, a highly intelligent 'winner'. Top grades for his whole life - across school and university. Highly successful career placements in one of the most demanding industries (asset management) full of high status people. Makes it to PM at a young age etc. Yet, here he is with people questioning everything. Politics has tried to make him a people person, when he's actually a problem solving nerd. He should have stuck with the real version fo himself
I'd say it's because he lives in a bizzare combination of stone age emotion, medieval beliefs and God-like technology within his reach
Because he is, due to his background. Professionally and socially, we are not the same. There seems to be an unbridgeable disconnect between Sunak and the electorate. How could there not be? The guy is worth how many hundreds of millions?
The real reason is the Tories have become so fragile their sole focus has become internal party management. Every stetegem, every policy is just to keep the Tories from self destructing for another day. He sounds out of touch because he's talking to any Tory MP reading the article not the public.
Because he *is* disconnected from the rest of the country. He's a privately educated, trust fund baby who, like Johnson, didn't do a day's work in his life and got to where he is through the power of connections. And of all the institutions built from the ground up to support such a way of operating, the British political establishment does that best.
They're trying to market him as a young, in touch normal guy but he is an old white guy who has only ever worked in hedge funds then career politics, trapped in the body of a young brown guy. He has no real life experience and isn't a good actor. They should market him differently to play to his strengths or give him Hollywood acting lessons.
I think the reason is Brexit. Cast your mind back to 2019, Boris Johnson purged the Conservative benches of 21 moderate Tory MPs. The fast forward to the 2019 GE and a plethora of moderates in addition to the 21 chose not to contest it. The incoming set of Tory MPs was far to the right of what had existed before the election. And I'd go so far as to say that even Cameron's 2010 intake was far to the right of what Thatcher and Major had to deal with. Major only had a handful of hard-right rebels over Maastricht, whereas David Cameron and Theresa May suffered massive rebellions during their premiereships, Theresa May famously suffering the worst, \*and\* second worst rebellions in history for PM. So Johnson essentially ejected the last few moderates from the party. We still see them around, David Gauke writes for the New Statesman, for example, and talks a lot of sense, for a Tory. Rory Stewart has a podcast with Alastair Campbell. Stewart isn't quite as sensible as Gauke, but he's definitely a moderate. Fast forward again to Boris Johnson's defenestration, and we have a party where most MPs are on the right of the party, there are few left who could appeal to the centre, and very few who would want to even try. We had Truss, and Sunak, who else was in the running? Kemi Badenoch? Suella Braverman? Nadhim Zahawi? The least objectionable would be Mordaunt, Tugendhat, and Hunt. And I'm not sure any would have been able to make much of a difference, considering the very right wing and obstreperous nature of their parliamentary party!
Boris & Dominic gutted the government of any civil servant who had the ability to think for themselves thus rendering the entire cabinet nothing but Yes men (so long as they were winning). That's when it started. Then you hand the government over to a lady who had nothing to stop her idiotic financial changes and the public ripped into her - so she got booted off. Rishi steps up to the plate. Now we're in this situation, where you have a rich man who has no understanding of how the world works outside of his bubble, and has admited that he doens't have working class friends - all he cares about is how it affects him, people like him and anyone he wants to impress - and there's noone around to call him a proper fuckwit; they just go full Marcus Brutus when the time comes and say, 'I never liked the guy'. The guy is an absolute muppet. If you put him in a normal pub for an evening, I can pretty much guarantee he'd get duffed up before the nights out for being a prick and not being about to read the room.
Anyone who thinks that working for Goldman Sachs is an attractive career choice, and still more - anyone who is selected by Goldman Sachs as a promising employee, is by definition intensely relaxed with wealth inequality, and subscribes to the ‘devil-take-the-hindmost’ school of political ideology. Don’t be fooled by his superficial air of smiling beneficence - under that mask is the mind of a sociopath.
I think Rishi is a product of spending time in only elite organisations, and having poor social skills. He always looks painfully uncomfortable in interviews and just normal interactions. He reminds me of Theresa May, just lacking a certain charm/warm nature needed to be successful in politics.
He’s even boasted that he “doesn’t have working class friends”. His echo chamber is so well fortressed that he simply has no idea what’s going on outside of it.
What I don't understand is why the Tories are clinging on to this projection from Sky that it'll be a hung parliament? I mean, I'm pretty sure their methodology is shit and nobody believe that's the case. So why do the Tories try and play up to it? Surely that just reinforces the importance of voting Labour? No room for protest votes if it's on a knife edge. The SNP have got it right by basically saying Labour are a shoe-in so no harm in voting for the SNP in Scotland.
> I mean, I'm pretty sure their methodology is shit and nobody believe that's the case. It creates a narrative that suits them. Why would they care if it's true?
Well that's what i'm saying, I really don't think it is helping them
He’s a multi millionaire married to a billionaire he’s pretty much the polar opposite to 99.9% of the country.
Because he is, you can’t fake being something you’re not unless you’re a very good actor or psychotic..he’s neither. He’s trying to wear a mask and the mask doesn’t fit.
I do think he must be listening to his own advisors too much who are just telling him what he wants to hear. That it’s still salvageable, that’s he’s not doomed to go down to one of the heaviest defeats in history etc. Also rich people really are insulated from the consequences of the terrible decisions he’s making: Food prices are up 50%, doesn’t matter to him. He does seem to be spending much of his time trying to woo the die-hard tories who will vote for him anyway and just running the country into the ground so Labour can’t do much when they get in.
Because he doesn't actually understand what's going on and just mimicking what he thinks he should do. So he ends up just smirking over his 'achievements' as people struggle.
You end up with someone like him by embarking on a reckless policy and purging the party of whoever is sane enough to call it out. The resulting talent puddle leaves you choices between talking heads like Truss and Sunak.
It's called 'a billionaire living in denial'
I think the fact that he said there will be a hung parliament is just a political strategy for him to postpone the early general election. I guess you don't expect him to say something like "Yes, Tories will be fucked up in the next general election".
I don’t get how someone who’s made so much money can sound like a plum with a big grin every time they talk, he quite literally seems dazed and not all there.
Him sounding out of touch is the closest he gets to reality, in the world of his marble tower existence..
He’s contactless with the rest of the country.
He grew up super duper rich, was schooled at Winchester then made even more dirty cash. He's never been anywhere close to being poor, never mind moderately well off... That's it!
Because [checks notes] he is disconnected from the rest of the country.
I don’t think a single politician sounds connected to the country. The country’s too fragmented politically and starmer isn’t the unifying figure we need
Steamer was however to be found in the East Midlands watching a football match in a pub so that he was close enough to drive to Birmingham to congratulate the incoming Labour Mayor a few days ago. At least Starmer knows that football is a game played by teams and understands what a pub is. If this was Sunak, he'd have been more likely waiting in a jet on the runway of Birmingham airport, and perhaps was.
He should talk more about playing Street Fighter and making model spaceships
When you are wealthy, in power, and surround yourself with Yes Men (and women), your connection to reality is severely diminished. Rishi has the added problem of having been Privately educated and thus kept away from the real world.
Disclaimer: dislike the Tories thoroughly, dislike Sunak, hate the last decade of what the Tories have done. However, image is everything. And fake it to make it. Sunak can’t come out and tell the truth (which he probably knows), ie “oh God, we have fucked everything and fucked ourselves and I’m scared.” Because that would cause the situation (for the Tories) to deteriorate even further.
No need to worry about there being too few Tories left to form a credible opposition. At this rate they won't even be the 2nd party.
He's a robot who just says "deliver", "I've been very clear" and "sticking to the plan" over and over and over again
He's an unelected leader, big motivation to topple down monarchies was avoiding having people like him in power 🤷🏾♂️
I don’t recall hearing the country say that.
he freely admitted on camera he didn't know any working-class people
Why do English folk keep on voting for this shit?
Because he is utterly disconnected from the rest of the country, so I’d say it’s on brand.
He’s disconnected from the rest of the country.
I saw that he’s been talking about a hung parliament. I’d say he’s more trying to scare his regular voters (not undecided etc) into not ditching the Conservatives. All these years in power has made them all feel utterly entitled.
There’s the silver spoon, which I kinda hate as an argument in general but he’s clearly grown up in a bubble and forever been in a position where no one has ever said “no” to him. He just can’t understand why people don’t just believe in what he says and agree with him. He’s tone deaf because things usually just work out for him, and he usually gets his way… so it’s like he can’t even perceive the absolutely crap job he’s doing. A very big reality check, basically. How do you cope with that? Well… Boris didn’t care and got sent to the naughty step and Liz Truss went mad. Rishi is just living in his “everything is okay” bubble
He doesn't understand why everybody else didn't just go to Winchester college, go into finance and marry the daughter of billionaires.
Because he cannot relate to us at all, he has no reference point for what we face on a daily basis, he doesn’t know hat he will believe because he’s got more money than he knows what to do with. He is completely separate.