No, not even in USD; he and his wife[1] combined would have been a billionaire in better exchange days but he's got a long way, even at $2:£1 before he's any kind of billionaire.
[1] who has ~£500M, largely from the family business, I believe.
The infosys part is pretty infuriating. He pushed through off payroll working reforms to make business a bit more nervous about using contractors then handed some more massive uk public sector contracts to infosys. Massively corrupt.
In 2022, the 'working class', are in offices, working. Which I suspect the PM, and government ministers all do. And often for longer hours, and over weekends.
> Sunak was born on 12 May 1980 in Southampton[10][11] to African-born Hindu parents of Punjabi Indian descent,[12][13] Yashvir and Usha Sunak.
Apparently coming from an immigrant family, modest background, becoming wealthy though hard work, and becoming PM is something to be despised?
As much as I despise this current bunch of MPs, I don't see anything wrong there. I doubt he would have achieved so much had his family stayed in Kenya.
Nothing in the parent comment is referring to its "race". He is a billionaire with a rich wife that hasn't been on a working class family wages for a very long time if he ever was. He cannot fathom the hardship that he is about to unleash on said working class.
To be descendant from immigrant is only relevant if you are a bigot with a potential impact on him becoming PM.
Parent comment has been edited, but either way, it is referring to Sunak being a billionaire and out of touch, which apparently is "a bad thing".
Despite the fact he comes from just about the most modest background possible. Which is surely something aspirational.
Nothing bigoted about that. And I don't see why someone's good fortune in life should be despised, just because they're an MP. Self-made wealth? Why not get angry with Alan Sugar, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and so on?
Although second generation immigrants, his father was a GP and his mother ran a local pharmacy. As a sibling comment notes, he attended a very privileged boarding school.
The South Asian diaspora that migrated to Africa in the 1930s and then on to the UK in the 1960s faced many hardships, but economic woes were not often one of them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of them have gone on to hold positions of power: Priti Patel, Suella Braverman, Shailesh Vara to name a few MPs.
Most of them lost everything. Idi Amin expropriated wealth from this group, that is how they ended up in the UK.
The reason why this group hasn't had economic woes is because they work harder than everyone else. I know a few families with this background, all of them came here with nothing, all their kids went to private school, they just worked harder and spent nothing. One family I know: three kids, all private school, their parents slept on the sofa and floor of their living room in a tiny flat, mother worked two/three jobs, dad worked 5am-10pm every day...if you didn't know what it took, they are privileged...but all anyone sees is "private school"...must be rich.
GPs and pharmacists didn't make that much money back then. Drawing sweeping conclusions about someone because of the school they went to (particularly given that Sunak was massively successful after school) is weak, it is the kind of narrow-minded viewpoint that the left constantly claims to be a victim of (in the UK).
Putting aside anecdata, survivorship bias, etc, at the of the day his parents spent a great deal of money on embedding him among the upper classes. Winchester, and its competitors, are not just a school you happen to pay for. Sending your children to live miles from home is rarely about quality of teaching.
There are many connections made in youth can continue to benefit you for the rest of your life. 33 PMs (of 56 in total) attended one of just 3 secondary schools, and 30 attended the same university. [1]
No one I've seen is commenting on his intelligence, but it is fair to question whether someone who has lived their teenage and adult life in and around the classical instituions of privilege (which are only accessible to and accepting of a minority) is a great choice for running a country having a cost of living crisis.
And I'm not sure where the idea that GPs didnt make that much comes from - £75k (adjusted) in the 90s was (and still is) a lot of money [2].
He lived in Southampton which is where Winchester is (roughly)...I mean it was like 10 miles from where he grew up (I thought about not continuing a reply on this mistake alone...you are just casting about wildly in the dark).
Correct, because the UK has highly-selective schools and has two universities that are much better than the rest. If you just transport someone into Oxbridge, they do not automatically become a success, it is just totally backwards-thinking.
Background makes no difference. Discriminating against someone because they are rich is not any different to discriminating against them because they are poor. Honestly, it is actually a little disturbing to see people conclude openly that because someone went to X school they must be a certain kind of person...awful.
And if you look at the chart, you will see when GPs began to earn a lot of money. I am not quite sure you understand what inflation-adjusted means if you are talking about it being a lot of money, it is the same value then and now...but paying for Winchester would still have been a substantial expense (he had siblings, he has said in interviews that the pressure on him to get a scholarship...which he didn't get...was immense).
This is getting unfortunately derailed. The debate is about whether Rishi's background renders him out of touch, not whether it gave him an unfair advantage.
Original claim (touristtam):
> He is a billionaire with a rich wife that hasn't been on a working class family wages for a very long time if he ever was. He cannot fathom the hardship that he is about to unleash on said working class.
Counter claim (DrBazza):
> he comes from just about the most modest background possible
Counter counter claim (Me):
> his father was a GP, his mother ran a local pharmacy, and he attended a very privileged boarding school
Rishi himself is on the record as making statements such as "I have no working class friends", "I always consider myself professional middle class", and "I tell inner city state school kids to apply to Oxford and talk to them about people like me, and then I shock them by saying I went to Winchester".
I'm not sure of the exact proportion of children attending public school per year in the UK, but I'm willing to bet it's a fraction of a percent. Both his siblings also attended private schools.
Rishi didn't have a "modest" background. He just didn't. Yes, his grandparents could be said to have grafted their way out of the working class. Yes, his parents worked hard to put him through a good education. That's exactly the point: he's never suffered and he doesn't know what being working class is like. He's been in the upper half of the middle class for his whole life.
> Honestly, it is actually a little disturbing to see people conclude openly that because someone went to X school they must be a certain kind of person...awful.
Basing it on the school he attended, which he had little influence over, is indeed nonsensical. Base your opinion on what he's said and done since instead. You'll probably come to the same conclusion though.
When I was a kid, my neighbours in the 70s were exactly who you're referring to. An Asian-Ugandan couple who worked and worked and spent everything on their two daughters, who were a bit older than me. One went to a grammar school, the other to... private school, because that's what they could afford. In fact, the daughter that went to private school was the only kid in my area that did.
Welcome to modern Britain. Making sacrifices is cheating. Success is rigged. Aspiration is boot-licking. The only socially acceptable form of success are gifts from the benevolent left-wing govt.
Again, this misrepresents the argument. No one is saying anything about cheating or boot-licking. The issue is that too many MPs are wealthy career politicians with no experience of normal working life. Whilst the public school track into politics has always been an issue, even in Labour the number of MPs with a working class background has plummeted over the last few decades. The detachment from working class reality is at a point where the leader now explicitly instructs front-benchers not to attend strike pickets.
Besides, isn't it more ambitious and impressive to have worked one's way into a position of political power without the silver spoon and elite connections? Look at Angela Rayner, a single mother and former care worker; Michael Gove, who worked his way up from an Aberdeen state school; or Dennis Skinner, who worked for 20 years a coal miner before representing Bolsover and giving Enoch Powell a run for his money in Parliament.
> While studying at Stanford, he met his future wife Akshata Murty, the daughter of N. R. Narayana Murthy, the Indian billionaire businessman who founded Infosys. Sunak and Murty are the 222nd richest people in Britain, with a combined fortune of £730m as of 2022.
>Apparently ... becoming wealthy though hard work ... is something to be despised?
>While studying at Stanford, he met his future wife Akshata Murty, the daughter of N. R. Narayana Murthy, the Indian billionaire businessman
Finding a billionaire's daughter to marry is hard work. I've been looking for one for years!
Nice. Oh did you know he is also a millionaire* who is so out of touch with normal working close people?
The sooner we can have a general election the better. Been a complete and utter mess.
Edit: Wrong about net worth but we all know about Infosys?