From 'Dishy Rishi' to 'Fishy Rishy', Sunak's popularity goes for a toss

Rishi Sunak, the Indian-origin British Chancellor of the Exchequer, has become the first frontline politician ranked among the United Kingdom’s wealthiest people. However, the more his riches grow, the further away he gets from his unspoken goal of replacing Boris Johnson as the prime minister of the country.

The 42-year-old Sunak, a former hedge fund manager, and his wife Akshata Murthy, daughter of Infosys co-founder NR Naryana Murthy, have been ranked as the 222^nd wealthiest people in the UK on the Sunday Times rich list, thanks to their combined fortune of £730 million. The power couple finds themselves on the rich list for the first time this year thanks to Murthy’s £690 million stake in Infosys.

The Indian IT giant’s revenue rose by 22.7% between January and March, leading it to forecast annual revenue growth of 13 to 15 per cent. Akshata, who owns 0.93% of Infosys, or 39 million shares, and is believed to have received £12 million in dividends alone last year, pushing up her estimated worth from around £430 million to £690 million.

Wealthier than the Queen

Akshata is touted to be wealthier than British Queen Elizabeth II, and the Sunaks have been dubbed Westminster’s first billionaire couple, probably enjoying the largest fortune of any House of Commons family since Clive of India’s during the 18^th century.

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Though happily married for over 12 years with two daughters, Akshata appears to have become Sunak’s Achilles heel, politically. The couple’s finances came under scrutiny last month when it was revealed that Akshata, still an Indian national, had non-domiciled status in the UK, allowing her to avoid paying tax on her foreign earnings as she planned to return to India to live. It is estimated that her non-domiciled status allowed Akshata to save her around £20 million in taxes on dividends from her shares in Infosys.

After public outrage at the fact that a non-domiciled foreign national was living in a taxpayer-funded flat in Downing Street – the most powerful address in the country – Akshata bowed to pressure and agreed to pay UK taxes on her worldwide income, saying that while she was doing nothing illegal she realises many people felt her tax arrangements were not “compatible with my husband’s job as Chancellor”. Sunak also moved his wife and daughters out of Downing Street to their lavish five-bedroom house worth £7 million in an exquisite Kensington mews in London to take the heat off his family’s finances.

US Green Card

But that was not the end of the couple’s troubles. Questions were raised when it later emerged in the press that Sunak and his wife had retained their US Green Cards after returning to Britain. Southampton-born Sunak had met Murthy while studying at Stanford in 2006 and the couple continued to live and work in the US after marriage in 2009. The couple still owns a £5 million penthouse in California overlooking the Santa Monica beach, where they holiday in style.

There is nothing illegal about holding a US Green Card while being a British national, but the optics of the Chancellor, one of the most senior members of the government doing it, was extremely embarrassing even for the Conservative Party. Tory backbenchers, who had not been worried by Murthy’s tax status, suggested the Green Card raised issues about Sunak’s long-term plans. A red-faced Sunak admitted that he held the Green Card for more than 18 months after becoming Chancellor but later gave up the status in October 2021 after seeking advice upon his first official trip to America.

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Pandemic perception plunge

All these leaks came just after Sunak had presented a mini-budget which did very little to alleviate the cost of living crisis. From being ‘Dishy Rishi’ during the COVID pandemic, he became ‘Fishy Rishi’, with voters complaining that he could not empathise with the hardships they were enduring thanks to the highest level of inflation in 40 years and soaring energy bills.

Just as the furore over Akshata’s tax status had died down, the Sunday Times Rich List ranking brought the focus back on Sunak’s wealth. Ironically the Rich List, or the ‘Rishi List’ as it is being called, came just a few days after the Chancellor warned the public that “the next few months will be tough” as the cost of living squeeze intensifies. The timing could not have been any worse.

After his week of shame in April punctured his political standing as Johnson’s main rival in any possible leadership contest, Sunak was lying low, trying to recover lost ground. The Rich List put the spotlight back on his wealth and the PR disaster with all the anger and hurt felt by the public was dredged up again. His lack of support for ordinary people while making it onto a list of the top 250 richest people in the country felt like an insult, pushing his popularity ratings to an all-time low.

Leadership contest

Now that the Sue Gray report on Partygate with all the lurid and incriminating details of wine-fuelled parties during the lockdowns in Downing Street has been published, more and more Tory MPs are publicly demanding Johnson’s resignation.

The possibility of a leadership contest in the Conservative Party is becoming real. This could have been Sunak’s opportunity, but his own stakes are currently so low that it is highly unlikely that Tory members would replace Johnson with another electoral liability.

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