Rishi

Rishi Sunak (born 12 May 1980) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2022 to 2024. Following his defeat to Keir Starmer's Labour Party in the 2024 general election, he became Leader of the Opposition, serving in this role from July to November 2024. He previously held two Cabinet positions under Boris Johnson, latterly...

Rishi Sunak (born 12 May 1980) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2022 to 2024. Following his defeat to Keir Starmer's Labour Party in the 2024 general election, he became Leader of the Opposition, serving in this role from July to November 2024. He previously held two Cabinet positions under Boris Johnson, latterly as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2020 to 2022. Sunak has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Richmond and Northallerton, previously Richmond (Yorks), since 2015. Sunak was born in Southampton to parents of Indian descent who immigrated to Britain from East Africa in the 1960s. He was educated at Winchester College, studied philosophy, politics and economics at Lincoln College, Oxford, and earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford University in California as a Fulbright Scholar. During his time at Oxford, Sunak joined the Conservatives. After graduating, he worked for Goldman Sachs and later as a partner at two hedge fund firms. Sunak was elected to the House of Commons at the 2015 general election. As a backbencher, he supported the successful campaign for Brexit in the 2016 European Union membership referendum. He was appointed to the junior ministerial position of Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government by Theresa May in 2018 and was appointed to the cabinet-attending role of Chief Secretary to the Treasury by Johnson in 2019. In 2020, Sunak was promoted to Chancellor of the Exchequer. During his time in the post, Sunak was prominent in the government's financial response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impact, including the furlough and Eat Out to Help Out schemes and the cost-of-living crisis. As chancellor, Sunak received high approval and popularity ratings in the early stages of the pandemic, although his popularity later declined amid the cost-of-living crisis of 2022. He resigned as chancellor in July 2022 amid a government crisis, and lost the subsequent party leadership election to Liz Truss that September. After spending the whole duration of the premiership of Liz Truss on the backbenches, Sunak was elected unopposed in the leadership election to succeed Truss the following October; aged 42 at the time he became prime minister, Sunak became the youngest prime minister since the Earl of Liverpool in 1812. During his premiership, Sunak attempted to improve the economy and stabilise national politics. He outlined five key priorities: halving inflation, growing the economy, cutting debt, reducing National Health Service waiting lists, and stopping small-boat crossings of the English Channel by enacting the Rwanda asylum plan. On foreign policy, Sunak authorised foreign aid and weapons shipments to Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion of the country, and pledged support for Israel after the October 7 attacks and subsequent Gaza war whilst later calling for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. He was unable to avert further unpopularity for the Conservatives, reflected in the party's poor performances in the 2023 and 2024 local elections. Sunak called a general election for July 2024 despite being widely expected to call the election in the autumn; the Conservatives lost this election in a landslide to the opposition Labour Party led by Keir Starmer, ending 14 years of Conservative government. After leaving the prime minister's office, Sunak became Leader of the Opposition and remained Conservative leader for nearly four months while the leadership election to replace him took place, and formed a shadow cabinet. He was succeeded by Kemi Badenoch, his Shadow Housing Secretary. He remains a backbench MP, and may take some outside work that is publicly reported. In 2025 he also took a position as a part-time senior advisor with one of his previous employers, Goldman Sachs, with some limits on his lobbying abilities. Early life and education (1980–2001) Rishi Sunak was born on 12 May 1980 in Southampton General Hospital in Southampton, Hampshire, to Punjabi East African-born Hindu parents of the Khatri community. His father was born in the Kenya Colony in 1949, and was a general practitioner in the National Health Service (NHS). Sunak's mother was born in the Tanganyika Territory (modern-day Tanzania), and was a pharmacist who owned the Sunak Pharmacy in Southampton between 1995 and 2014, and has a degree from Aston University. His paternal grandfather Ramdas Sunak had migrated from Gujranwala (located in present-day Pakistan), to the Kenyan capital of Nairobi in 1935, while his maternal grandfather, Raghubir Berry, grew up in Ludhiana (located in present-day India), before eventually moving to Tanzania as an engineer. Both Gujranwala and Ludhiana were part of the Punjab province of British India at the time. Both of Sunak's parents had moved to the UK in 1966. While in the UK, they met and eventually married in 1977.Sunak lived in Portswood but moved to Bassett, after the birth of his younger brother and sister. He attended Stroud School, a preparatory school in Romsey, and later studied at Winchester College as a dayboy, becoming head boy of the college. He worked as a waiter, at the curry house Kuti's Brasserie in Southampton, during his summer holidays. He read philosophy, politics and economics at Lincoln College, Oxford, graduating with a first in 2001. During his time at university, he undertook an internship at Conservative Campaign Headquarters and joined the Conservative Party. In 2006 Sunak earned a Master of Business Administration degree from Stanford University as a Fulbright Scholar. Sunak is the eldest of three siblings. His brother is a psychologist and his sister works in New York as chief of strategy and planning at Education Cannot Wait, the United Nations Global Fund for Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises. Career Business career (2000–2015) Following an internship in 2000, Sunak worked as an analyst for investment bank Goldman Sachs between 2001 and 2004. He then worked for hedge fund management firm The Children's Investment Fund Management (TCI) from September 2006 to November 2009. He left the fund to join former colleagues in California at a new hedge fund firm, Theleme Partners, which launched in October 2010 with $700 million under management. At both hedge funds, he directly reported to Patrick Degorce. Sunak was a director of the investment firm Catamaran Ventures, owned by his father-in-law, the Indian businessman N. R. Narayana Murthy of Infosys, between 2013 and 2015. Backbencher (2015–2018) Sunak was selected as the Conservative candidate for Richmond (Yorks) in October 2014. The seat was previously held by William Hague. In the same year Sunak was head of the Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) Research Unit of the conservative think tank Policy Exchange, for which he co-wrote a report on BME communities in the UK. He was elected as MP for the constituency at the 2015 general election with a majority of 19,550 (36.2%). During the 2015–2017 Parliament he was a member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee. Sunak supported the successful campaign to leave the European Union in the 2016 European Union membership referendum, criticising the EU's immigration laws: "We are discriminating against countries with whom we have ties of history, language and culture" That year, he wrote a report for the Thatcherite think tank Centre for Policy Studies supporting the establishment of free ports after Brexit, and the following year wrote a report advocating the creation of a retail bond market for small and medium-sized enterprises. Following Cameron's resignation, Sunak endorsed Michael Gove in the 2016 Conservative Party leadership election, and later endorsed successful candidate Theresa May after Gove was eliminated in the second round of voting. Sunak was re-elected at the 2017 general election with an increased majority of 23,108 (40.5%). In the same year, Sunak wrote a paper for Policy Exchange on the importance and fragility of the UK's undersea infrastructure. Sunak was re-elected at the 2019 general election with an increased majority of 27,210 (47.2%). Following boundary changes in the 2024 general election, Sunak won the seat of Richmond and Northallerton, which replaced his former seat of Richmond (Yorks), with a majority of 23,059 (51.4). Local government under-secretary (2018–2019) Sunak was appointed to a junior ministerial position in May's second government as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government in the 2018 cabinet reshuffle. Sunak voted for May's Brexit withdrawal agreement on all three occasions, and voted against a second referendum on any withdrawal agreement. May's withdrawal agreement was rejected by Parliament three times, leading to May announcing her resignation in May 2019. Sunak supported Boris Johnson's successful bid to succeed May in the 2019 Conservative Party leadership election and co-wrote an article with fellow MPs Robert Jenrick and Oliver Dowden to advocate for Johnson during the campaign in June. Chief secretary to the Treasury (2019–2020) Sunak was appointed to the senior cabinet role of chief secretary to the Treasury by Johnson, serving under Sajid Javid. He became a member of the Privy Council the next day. During the 2019 general election, Sunak represented the Conservatives in debates. Chancellor of the Exchequer (2020–2022) In the weeks leading up to Johnson's first cabinet reshuffle in February 2020, a number of briefings in the press had suggested that a new economic ministry led by Sunak might be established, to reduce the power and political influence of the Treasury. By February 2020, it was reported that Javid would remain in his role as Chancellor and that Sunak would stay on as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, in order to "keep an eye" on Javid. On 13 February 2020, the day of the reshuffle, Javid resigned as chancellor, following a meeting with Johnson. During the meeting, Johnson had offered to allow Javid to keep his position on the condition that he dismiss all his advisers at the Treasury and replace them with ones selected by 10 Downing Street. Upon resigning, Javid told the Press Association that "no self-respecting minister would accept those terms". Sunak was promoted to chancellor to replace Javid as part of Johnson's first cabinet reshuffle later that day. COVID-19 pandemic In response to the first confirmed COVID-19 cases in January 2020, Sunak introduced advice for travellers coming from affected countries in late January and February 2020, and began contact tracing, although this was later abandoned. There were further societal restrictions on the public as the virus spread across the country in the following weeks, initially resisting more stringent measures introduced elsewhere in Europe and Asia. On 23 March 2020, as COVID-19 had become a pandemic and began rapidly spreading across the country, Sunak became prominent in the government's response to the pandemic and its economic impact. On 20 March 2020, Sunak gave a statement on COVID-19, saying: Now, more than any time in our history, we will be judged by our capacity for compassion. Our ability to come through this, won't just be down to what government or businesses do, but by the individual acts of kindness that we show each other. When this is over, we want to look back on this moment and remember the many small acts of kindness done by us and to us. We want to look back on this time and remember how we thought first of others and acted with decency. We want to look back on this time and remember how, in the face of a generation-defining moment, we undertook a collective national effort – and we stood together. It's on all of us. Furlough scheme Sunak introduced a programme providing £330 billion in emergency support for businesses, as well as the Coronavirus Job Retention furlough scheme for employees.