So Rishi Sunak is rich and people can’t seem to get over it. Last week the BBC showed the Prime Minister a word cloud which suggested the main thing the public thought about him was that he was “rich”, so rich that they had very few other words on the chart. It was super-uncomfortable to watch the clip because since Sunak stepped into the Tory leadership race almost two years ago, all that people have talked about is his and his family’s wealth.
I could understand if this was coming from some sort of anti-big business and anti-wealth hippy movement. But it’s not. The irony is that some of the loudest critics of the PM, those who say he’s not fit for his role because he is rich, are actually other Conservatives.
Last year during the leadership race Nadine Dorries, on several occasions, referred to Sunak as “rich and out of touch” and at one point told the world how much his suit cost before claiming that Liz Truss would make a better PM because her earrings were from Claire’s. We all know how that turned out.
Yet Dorries’s statement would be funny if it wasn’t tainted with what I see as racism. The reality is that people don’t have an issue with a rich Tory prime minister, because most Tory PMs and MPs are rich — I mean, even some Labour Party MPs are wealthy — but the issue with our current PM is that he is a rich self-made brown man.
Congratulations is what we should be saying, not taking every opportunity to show British classism and racism
Yes, I said it, because it needs to be said and challenged. The PM’s parents worked in our NHS, he had a weekend job in his parents’ business and then he went on to work in a sector where most people make money. His marriage to Akshata Murthy has obviously brought him into contact with even more wealth, but he made his own fortune independently.
Congratulations to him is what we should be saying, not taking every opportunity to show the blatant classism of this country, mixed so noxiously with racism. Clearly some believe only the very white establishment can hold power and wealth.
That classism was sadly on show when the Claire’s earrings-wearing Truss was giving her speech yesterday at conference. Many of the normal Right-minded people did not bother to go and see her speech. What what was not lost on many of us, though, those who feel uncomfortable about the way Sunak is being treated, was the people she surrounded herself with.
Having people like Nigel Farage being there to cheer you on says a lot about you. It says you are a broken record who is flying very close to dog whistle racism. Truss had her chance of being PM, so now she should act as Rishi Sunak did for her — give him a fair go at his first conference as party leader. He, unlike her or others who think they should return as PM, is actually fit to run the Conservative Party.
As you can tell, I really like Rishi and his rise is something that I am proud of. He reminds me a lot of my little cousins who are part of a first generation of young black men captaining their rugby teams and leading their schools.
I know they all look up to Rishi and I also know the immigrant parents sacrificing everything so that their kids can have a better and different life than them in schools across also see Rishi as what is possible in this country for their children.
I hope his speech tomorrow goes well, and I hope he knows that a lot of people are rooting for him across this country.
Why is Elon Musk so mean?
Everything I know about Elon Musk is against my will. The man who owns Twitter, now called X, is a unique human being but now that he has stepped into politics we are seeing that he is also an unkind man who has very little respect for millions of people fleeing war and persecution.
In several tweets that he sent out, which appear on my timeline because he thinks we should all see his every thought, he displays an incredible lack of empathy towards people.
He tweeted “Is the German public aware of this?” over a video of people being rescued from the ocean. The German government’s official account replied to him with “Yes. And it’s called saving lives”.
This was something that I retweeted but it has left me wondering why someone who could choose to do absolutely anything with his time and platform would decide to troll people saving the lives of these unfortunate people.
I know that makes me sound super-naive but honestly, I don’t get why people who have everything they need, including health, are so mean.
