For the first time, the next British prime minister could be someone of color. Rishi Sunak, along with Foreign Minister Liz Truss, reached the final in the Conservative Party leadership race. Sunak served as finance minister in Boris Johnson’s government. Sunak was always ahead in the vote of conservative MPs for the election of the prime minister candidate. All party members will now vote by mail. What a beautiful tradition, how did we miss such an opportunity to adopt from the “English woman” in time? But it’s too late now. Results will be announced in early September.
Sunak’s career can serve as an example of how the UK has become an equal opportunity society and that racial prejudice is eventually overcome there. However, this is not entirely true. Southampton-born Sunak’s starting opportunities were not initially zero. Although his father and mother could not be considered rich, they were not poor. Both parents worked in the medical field. One came from Kenya to the UK and the other from Tanzania (where they were born) in the early 1960s. Ancestors, of course, came to East Africa from India.
Sunak’s biography is a confirmation that a good education is the mainstay of a successful career. In this case, of course, English. And “Anglo-Saxon” in general, however obnoxious. Sunak was lucky twice: he wasn’t born in Tanzania, and his parents were able to pay for his education, for which they had to work hard. The first principle of a good career: Primary school should be good. Rishi started at Winchester College, then went on to Oxford and then Stanford. I worked in a restaurant during the summer holidays. The latter (such jobs) is also a “desirable” component of a successful career.
By the way, the introduction of many Soviet leaders to the nomenclature “from the plow” made a lot of sense, even if later they completely forgot to eat these plows and machine from private distributors. Now unfortunately our career ladder has been broken in many places, it is completely unclear how to get out of the bottom.
After graduating from Oxford with brilliant results (the Altar was the first in philosophy, politics and economics), the talented young man received a Fulbright scholarship (the Fulbright program worked for us once and started in Soviet times, but then it was banned). That’s why he didn’t study at Stanford, California, at the expense of his parents. Numerous grants and scholarships of all kinds for not very wealthy but talented students are perhaps the only opportunity for them to get a good education, whose prices are now skyrocketing in the UK and USA. And not everyone wants to graduate from a college with $250,000 in loan debt (in the average US).
After graduating from Stanford, Sunak went to earn money, worked at various investment companies including Goldman Sachs, worked both in the USA and in the UK and India. Until 2010, he earned half a billion lira from his own investment fund. It’s time to get into politics. It’s funny that if Britain had the same restrictions on the ownership of foreign financial instruments, Sunak wouldn’t have been a politician there. And so he went to volunteer for the conservatives. But not nervous – a few days a week. Voluntary and free – literally. Politics is usually for the “passionate”, and in a sense, the “altruistic”: this game is long and mainly in the sense that besides self-actualization, you should not look for options to quickly cut the dough. About the desire to bring some to life, God forgive me, principles and ideas. This, of course, does not deny a large share of cynicism. But at the same time, everyone wants the best. But each in his own way.
In principle – that is, purely theoretically – it is good for wealthy and already established people to enter politics. They are potentially more altruistic and passionate than those who are eager to “make money” from politics, with the exception of gopotas and beggars.
But there is no friendship in politics. For example, Sunak decided to leave the Johnson government in time, not staying “to endure” and not waiting for the scandals that ended him. But for some reason, the prime minister saw this as a betrayal, was offended and urged the party members not to vote for Sunak in any way.
Prior to his tenure as minister, Sunak was able to run in parliament (he was perhaps the wealthiest MP there) because he was elected from a district that was almost “trusted” for Conservatives, where they did not vote for anyone but the Conservatives. . Well made, well calculated.
The marriage also went well. Now the happy and wealthy couple has two children. Dad doesn’t drink. From the word “absolutely”. And now he likes Coca-Cola, with which we “completely stylistically” disagree. Rishi met his future wife, Ashkata Murthy, at Stanford. This is usually a good place to make profitable games for kids (check yourself out, it’ll come in handy just in case). The founder of IT company Infosys is the daughter of Indian billionaire Narayan Murthy, also called Bill Gates of India. The girl owns about 1% of her father’s shares, which doesn’t make her poorer than the English queen. Plus own designer clothing company. Although Akshata remains a citizen of India (by place of birth), which prohibits dual citizenship. However, neither India nor, most importantly, the UK, prohibit a foreign spouse with an American green card in their history from becoming British Prime Minister from the ruling Conservative party. What time did it come? By our standards, it’s literally the last.
Altar was a very good finance minister, helping the country guide the way through tough covid times. At his initiative, the government has allocated a large sum of money (£330 billion) so that quarantined persons can receive up to 80% of their wages from their employer without working. A special assistance program for restaurants, eateries and bars has also been developed and food support (up to 10 pounds per person) is provided to visitors. Now Altar is in favor of lowering taxes, but only after it succeeds in reducing inflation. It promises to pursue an economic policy in the spirit of Margaret Thatcher. However, Liz Truss is also her equal. And he is uncompromising on this, as far as I remember, he made a mistake in terms of geography because he was visiting with us.
And finally, what about racism? Officially, “there was no sex”, just like in the USSR, and not in England. But after Rishi Sunak was nominated for party leadership, waves of outright racist comments began to appear on social networks.
In addition, disgusting to many, the politician of Hindu descent is also rich – so much so that he can afford to spend 13,000 pounds a year heating his private pool (even the poor have to report such expenditures). He also has a foreign billionaire wife. And as such, there are serious tax benefits in the UK. The latter is particularly annoying.
Rishi Sunak himself is just beginning to remember having to deal with insults and humiliation on racial grounds in childhood and youth, following movements like the BLM. But he also added that the situation has improved dramatically since his parents came to the UK.
We must pay tribute to the Conservative Party itself, they take into account modern demographic trends and have long worked to ensure that national minorities have more representatives in their ranks. Fifteen years ago, only two of the Conservative lawmakers weren’t white. Now 22.
However, the share is still less than that of Labor (they have 41 and two-thirds of the representatives of national minorities vote Labour). Even David Cameron began diligently working on the “percentage”: they began to try to put representatives of national minorities in constituencies that were clearly valid for the Conservatives.
Judging by the polls, the majority of party members are ready to support Rishi Sunak. As supported by the majority of party members-parliamentarians. But most ordinary party members also want Boris Johnson not to leave. Bookies are still betting on the victory of Liz Truss (I would bet on her too, but a small amount). He seems to have more prominent leadership traits. There may also be a hidden, unspoken bias against the British Prime Minister of India.
Frankly, I don’t believe in Sunak’s victory so far. However, any attempt at diversity counts in any case. It seems to provoke arguments like which, but when will we elect (or appoint) the country’s leaders from among representatives of national minorities? However, we will leave these considerations for the future. Now we are not yet fit for diversity.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.