Rishi Sunak has been named the United Kingdom’s next Prime Minister. His appointment comes after the resignation of Liz Truss barely two months into office, the shortest in the history of the UK.
The former Chancellor of the Exchequer entered politics with nearly no fanfare and yet, by the age of 40 had managed to impress enough people that he was made the finance minister. In fact, Sunak’s appointment meant that he had inherited the worst economic downturn since the 2008 financial crisis. During his time, he made several policy introductions which were widely seen as popular and helpful for those being ravaged by the economic crisis.
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Come April 2020 and the Internet, having already gone a little stir crazy, found a picture of Rishi Sunak in a grey sweater. From there, all hell broke loose. The Daily Mail in the UK ran an article about the Exchequer calling him “Dishy Rishi”. For those out of the know, “dishy” in UK slang means handsome.
GQ and Vogue ran articles about Sunak fawning over every detail of his physique and personality, awed at the fact that he lacked a “politician’s superiority complex.”
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It’s worth pointing out that Sunak attended an all-boys private boarding school in Hampshire. He’s not exactly what one would call the ‘everyman’ politician. In fact, just a cursory search online will net you a video of Sunak saying that he doesn’t actually what he calls “working-class friends”. Make of that what you will.
And so we come to the events of the last few days. After Truss resigned, Boris Johnson tentatively announced his candidacy and promptly pulled out after Tories threatened to leave the party. Sunak’s other competitor Penny Mordaunt also failed to secure enough votes. He now faces the mammoth task of fixing the UK’s economy after Truss’ disastrous two month stint in the PM’s office left voters on both sides of the aisle bitter.