Rishi Sunak: Britains Embattled Conservative Leader - UrduPoint
Source: UrduPoint
London, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Jun, 2024) Rishi Sunak is seeking his own public mandate at next month's general election having been installed as Conservative leader and UK prime minister by his own colleagues in parliament.
The 44-year-old former financier was tasked with stabilising the UK economy, and his own notoriously fractious party, when he succeeded Liz Truss in October 2022 after her 49-day premiership imploded.
Sunak has succeeded up to a point on the former but failed to stop bitter Tory infighting, while polls say he is one of the UK's most unpopular leaders ever and likely to lose the July 4 vote.
"The more people see of Sunak, the less they like him in some ways," Tim Bale, author of a book about the right-wing Conservatives since Brexit, told AFP on Sunak's first anniversary as premier last year.
Since then Sunak has had little to celebrate, lurching from one failed leadership reset to another as he has unsuccessfully tried to claw back support from Keir Starmer's resurgent Labour party.
A recent poll even put the anti-immigration Reform UK party of Nigel Farage just ahead of the Tories.
Sunak has been criticised for lacking political nous, particularly after he left the 80th anniversary of D-Day events early, causing widespread outrage.
He has apologised repeatedly since and even had to deny that he was on the verge of quitting before polling day.
- 'Dishy Rishi' -
The privately wealthy Sunak has struggled to connect with regular voters struggling with a cost-of-living crisis.
He was roundly mocked for suggesting he had an austere childhood because his family did not have satellite television, while his interactions with voters have often seemed awkward.
During his run for the Tory leadership, a video emerged of a 21-year-old Sunak talking about his friends.
"I have friends who are aristocrats, I have friends who are upper-class, I have friends who are, you know, working-class," he says, before adding quickly: "Well, not working-class."
The details-oriented policy wonk was forced to craft an enormous economic support package at breakneck speed, which he regularly touts as one of his proudest achievements in politics.
- Wealthy wife -
The pandemic sullied his squeaky clean reputation, though, after he received a police fine for breaching Covid rules by joining a birthday gathering for then-prime minister Boris Johnson at Downing Street.
Sunak also faced difficult questions about the tax affairs of his wife Akshata Murty, whose father Narayana Murthy is the billionaire co-founder of information technology group Infosys.
In early 2022, newspapers reported that she had non-domiciled status, meaning she had not been paying UK taxes on her Infosys returns.
He insists only he has a "clear plan" backed by "bold action" to change Britain but voters look set to limit his time in office to less than two years.