The United Kingdom will hold a general election called by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on July 4. His Conservative Party is trailing Labour by 21 points in the latest polls, so Mr Sunak faces a tough challenge to maintain his party’s 14-year grip on power and his own position as prime minister.
Here are some facts about the current British Prime Minister:
1. Rishi Sunak was born on May 12, 1980 in Southampton, England. His grandparents were all born in India but moved to East Africa for work and eventually settled in the UK. Mr Sunak went to Winchester College, a private boarding school in England, and later graduated from Oxford University. He earned an MBA from Stanford University, where he met his wife Akshata Murthy, daughter of Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murthy. They married in 2009 and have two daughters.
2. Before entering politics, Mr Sunak had a successful career in finance. From 2001 to 2004 he worked as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, then became a partner at The Children’s Investment Fund Management in 2006. In 2010, he moved to Thelem Partners, another hedge fund management firm. He also served as a director of Catamaran Ventures, an investment firm owned by his father-in-law.
3. Mr Sunak’s political career began in 2014 when he was selected as the Conservative candidate for Richmond (Yorks). In 2015, he was elected Member of Parliament for Richmond (Yorks), where he received 36.2% of the vote. His political rise continued as he served in various government positions, including Minister for Local Government in 2018, Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 2019 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2020 to 2022.
4. In October 2022, Mr Sunak made history when King Charles III appointed him Britain’s first Hindu and Indian-origin prime minister. Elected unopposed as Conservative Party leader on Diwali, he became the youngest British prime minister in 210 years at the age of 42.
5. As the UK Prime Minister, Mr Sunak has been surrounded by controversies. In May 2024, he proposed restricting UK post-study visas, which was opposed by cabinet members. In 2022, Mr Sunak faced a tax scandal over his wife’s non-resident status. The same year, he was involved in another controversy over holding a US green card while serving as a British government minister. Mr Sunak also faced criticism for his role in the Partygate scandal, receiving a fixed penalty notice for attending Boris Johnson’s birthday party during lockdown in 2020.