Rishi Sunak, is set to become the 56th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and the next leader of the Conservative Party, taking over from Liz Truss who lasted just 44 days in the role. Sunak was the only candidate after a while for Penny Mordaunt to withdraw just before time ran out.
Sunak became the clear choice to succeed Ms. Truss after she resigned, with Boris Johnson withdrawing from the race where he had previously sought to become leader for a second time. He will be the third prime minister in seven weeks. An unparalleled level of turbulence; a series of devastating events that many Conservatives acknowledge have amounted to damaging the party’s reputation.
Sunak became Chancellor in February 2020 and within weeks found himself forced to redirect the British economy as the pandemic and curfew began.
Early life
Rishi Sunak was born in Southampton in 1980, to Hindu parents of Punjabi Indian descent. His grandparents moved from Punjab, north-western India, to East Africa, where his mother and father were born in Tanzania and Kenya, mother being born in Tanganyika and father being born in Kenya during British rule.
Sunak attended the exclusive private Winchester College – and worked as a waiter at Southampton Curry House during his summer holidays – then went to Oxford to study philosophy, politics and economics.
He is married to Akshata Murty, the daughter of N. R. Narayana Murthy, the Indian billionaire businessman who founded Infosys.
At only 42 years, Rishi Sunak will be the country’s first Asian prime minister and Britain’s youngest prime minister since Lord Liverpool took office in 1812.