In his second attempt, Rishi Sunak was able to win the leadership of the Conservative Party, after his only rival announced that he was withdrawing from the race, he emerged as the only candidate and the winner. Sunak, after completing the formal procedures, will become the first British Prime Minister of Asian origin in history.
In August, former finance minister Rishi Sunak was one of the front-runners in the race for the prime minister's seat, which was left vacant by the resignation of Boris Johnson in July. However, he failed to convince members of the Conservative Party: they bet on Liz Truss - and, as it turned out, they were wrong.
WHO IS RISHI SUNAK AND WHAT KIND OF LEADER CAN GET OUT OF HIM?
During his campaign, Sunak focused on the UK economy, offering plans to bring it out of the crisis. He told the BBC at the time that he would rather lose the party leadership race than "win with false promises", referring to the tax cuts promised by his rival Liz Truss.
As a result, Truss became prime minister, but her radical proposals to cut taxes without explaining how to compensate for them in the budget caused panic in the markets, and a month later she lost her position as prime minister.
Rishi Sunak commented on his candidacy for the position of prime minister by bringing the country out of a deep economic crisis.
On Sunday, he was backed by Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, appointed by Liz Truss. According to Hunt, Sunak will make "the choices necessary for our long-term prosperity."
JOB IN THE GOVERNMENT
Nick Eardley, Chief Political Correspondent: Rishi Sunak will take over as Prime Minister at an extremely difficult time for the British economy. We haven't heard much from him about his plans since his losing Conservative leadership campaign this summer. Today he will be asked to clarify how he intends to balance the country's books.
The political pressure regarding the general election also went nowhere. Opposition parties demand their holding, and some members of parliament from the conservatives have also declared that they consider them necessary.
Sunak became Chancellor of the Exchequer in February 2020 and within a few weeks he was faced with the need to manage the UK economy in conditions of a pandemic and prolonged lockdowns.
To many, this relatively young man seemed like a reliable and firm hand at the wheel. In the spring of 2020, he promised to do everything to help the country survive the pandemic and announced measures to support citizens and businesses totaling 350 billion pounds. His personal rating in the polls went up sharply. However, the British economy was still in a storm. Sunak himself was fined by the police in June 2020 for violating the rules of the lockdown on Downing Street.
In April, some Conservative critics doubted that Sunak, a millionaire, fully understood the scale of the rising cost of living Britain was facing. At the same time, Sunak and his family's finances have come under the spotlight - as have the tax affairs of his wife Akshata Murthy, who owns a significant stake in her father's Indian company Infosys and received £10m in dividends last year - which she has been accused of avoiding taxes in Britain under the pretext of non-resident status, and to ease political pressure on her husband, Murthy announced that she would start paying taxes in Britain on her foreign income.
BIOGRAPHY OF RISHI SUNAK
He is 42 years old, born in Southampton, lives in London and Yorkshire.
Sunak's parents, originally from India, came to the UK from East Africa. He was born in Southampton in 1980, where his father was a GP and his mother owned and operated a pharmacy.
He studied at the elite private school of Winchester College, and in the summer he worked as a waiter in a restaurant in Southampton. Sunak then entered Oxford to study philosophy, politics and economics.
While studying for an MBA program at Stanford University, he met his future wife, Akshatha Murthy, daughter of Narayana Murthy, the Indian billionaire and co-founder of IT services giant Infosys.
The couple has two daughters, whom Sunak often mentioned in the context of climate change during the previous election campaign. Asked about global warming during a BBC TV debate, he said he would take the advice of his young daughters, who are experts on the subject in his home.
From 2001 to 2004, Sunak worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, and then was a partner at two hedge funds.
He is considered one of the richest members of parliament, but does not publicly comment on his wealth.
Leading broadcaster Sky News asked him what he thought of claims that he was too rich to be prime minister. In response, Sunak reminded that inflation affects all citizens, and that, unlike Liz Truss, his program in the last election included primarily helping the poor.
In 2015, Sunak became the Member of Parliament for the city of Richmond in Yorkshire and took a low profile position in Theresa May's government. Her successor, Boris Johnson, appointed him chief secretary to the Treasury.
In February 2020, Sunak was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer and initially strongly supported Johnson, but later resigned, saying his approach to the economy was fundamentally different from that of the Prime Minister.
Sunak is a supporter of Brexit and voted for Britain to leave the EU. In an interview with the Yorkshire Post, he said he believed it would make Britain freer, fairer and more prosperous.
Another reason that prompted him to vote for Brexit was migration: “I believe that competent immigration can benefit our country. But we have to control our borders."
Sunak voted three times in favor of Theresa May's plan to leave the EU when it was brought before parliament.
IDENTITY MATTER
Sunak belongs to a generation of descendants of immigrants who were born in Great Britain but have roots in other countries. According to him, this identity is important to him.
In an interview with the BBC in 2019, Sunak said: "In terms of cultural upbringing, I went to the temple at the weekend - I'm Hindu - but I also went to the football on Saturday."
In an interview, he said that he was lucky - in his childhood he did not encounter manifestations of racism, but there was one incident that he remembered for the rest of his life.
“I was just hanging out with my younger brother and younger sister, I was quite young, I was probably fifteen years old, we were at a fast food restaurant and I was just looking after them. There were people sitting next to me, this was the first time I had encountered this, they were saying very unpleasant things. The word for the letter "P" (a slang word meaning people from Hindustan). And it was painful. I still remember it. It stuck in my memory."
However, he added that he could not imagine that happening in the UK today.
"I WILL FLY TO KYIV"
"If I become the prime minister, I will redouble our efforts and strengthen our policy of all kinds of support for Ukraine," Sunak promised during the first summer campaign.
"President Zelenskyi, brave citizens of Ukraine, have no doubt: whatever happens here in the coming weeks, the United Kingdom will remain your strongest ally," he said.
Sunak promised that his first foreign visit as prime minister would be a trip to Kyiv.
On the Independence Day of Ukraine, August 24, Sunak published his letter to the people of Ukraine in the English-language newspaper Kyiv Post, in which he promised that, no matter what happens, Britain will remain Ukraine's most consistent and strongest ally.
From the very beginning of hostilities, Sunak, who was then finance minister, publicly expressed support for Kyiv, while admitting that it was not cheap for the British budget.
Some analysts, however, point out that with winter approaching, rising energy prices and the general malaise of the British economy, it is difficult to predict how long this support will last and to what extent.
