Snapshot of _Rishi Sunak - The Movie_ :
An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnwurflqrfQ) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnwurflqrfQ)
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I always think back to the tory party conference speech where he described his childhood growing up as the son of a pharmacist. He told it like he was this kid growing up on the wrong side of the tracks who has defied the odds to make his way in the world.
He seemed to have no sense that there were millions and millions of UK residents who would aspire to the wealth and lifestyle of a pharmacist's family.
He grew up in relative privilege and married into unimaginable privilege. Completely and utterly out of touch with the average person's concerns and motivations, plus lacking even the most basic empathy.
Clueless. Completely clueless.
Right, I know this is relative, but someone who’s Parents are a doctor and a Pharmacist doesn’t typically end up head boy at the most expensive private school in the country. So either he was very lucky, or this “typical middle class” upbringing is a lie, and he got help from somewhere.
100% - something smells off.
A combined household salary of £100k-£150k is hardly Richie rich.
There's hundreds and thousands of families that have 2 Doctors as parents and they do NOT end up in the same position as this ponce.
He's tried to paint himself as ordinary or coming from a humble, middling background, but it's just bullshit - he comes from a migrant background that had/has wealth & prestige abroad and had wealth here. He was definitely not middle class IMO.
I've met so many 1st generation immigrants that claim to be working class and paint themselves as being hard done by, yet their family have assets and wealth totaling hundreds of thousands / millions abroad. Fucking laughable. Sunak is on the extreme end of this type of situation.
Sunak's Grandad has an OBE, sat on the board of Inland revenue and was none of the highest ranking Tax officials in the UK. He went to a school older than Eton and one of the handful considered on par with Eton for exclusivity
Members of his family were in charge of running the administrative and tax arm of the Empire in colonial Africa. You don't get to marry into an upper caste billionaire bhramin family without family prestige on your side.
Aside from what the other poster said about his grandad being pretty high up running colonial Africa, it's worth pointing out that working as a doctor just straight up isn't quite as extremely prestigious as it used to be.
Back in the 70s/80s it would have been like one of the three or four BIG MONEY upper-midde-class careers alongside law and finance.
I'm not defending Sunak here, but it's a pretty damning indictment on the state of Britain when you're representing being a pharmacist as an amazing level of wealth and privilege.
I mean its a highest caste Hindu family - otherwise they would never have got their son to talk to the daughter of another Brahmin caste family (let alone a billionaire.) They had money and prestige. Let's not try and compare these dudes to an ordinary middle-class British family.
Also "being a pharmacist" is not the same as owning the Pharmacy is it?
I'm not attacking you or your point. I think it's a sign of the malaise of the country that a pretty commonplace middle-class job is seen as so much relative privilege. It shows have badly off a lot of people are.
> I think it's a sign of the malaise of the country that a pretty commonplace middle-class job is seen as so much relative privilege.
Yes, I understood that.
Edit: this has to be the most brittle blocking I've yet encountered.
Average pharmacist salary is still around 46% higher than the median wage in the country.
Definitely “alright” territory.
This isn’t even including the fact that Sunaks dad was more than just a pharmacist.
>Clueless. Completely clueless.
He's not clueless. He knows what he's doing, and what he's doing is working for the richest in society. He's not different to most of the Tory leaders of the past 40 years.
Tbf to Sunak, I imagine being the son of a pharmacist probably puts his lifestyle as what most people consider middle class (average wage for a pharmacist now is £51k). That’s not really the level at which he shouldn’t understand real life nor is it indicative of major privilege. His public school education probably did more to skew that, than the relative wealth of his family. I don’t earn much less than that and I’m hardly eating caviar and oppressing the proles.
His dad was a doctor, I don’t know why we’re focusing on his mum who was the pharmacist. It’s not like they were mega wealthy, but he had a comfortable upbringing.
I think he emphasises it because whilst it is comfortable, it's not "unreasonably" so - people generally don't begrudge pharmacists and doctors their relatively high incomes, unlike billionaires.
Likewise doctors while highly paid still sit firmly in the middle classes. He’s likely not to have ever wanted for anything, probably has never been around poverty but it wasn’t like he was growing up the son of a billionaire like his wife.
His grandad was one of the highest ranking tax officials in the Empire and in the UK, he sat on the board of Inland revenue when he migrated here and received an OBE.
My grandad was an engineer in Kenya and comes from a fairly wealthy background, but Sunak's family is another level
I think there’s probably a difference between being a pharmacist at say, Boots or a high street pharmacy… and owning your own pharmacy like Sunak’s parents.
Similar people that aspire to be engineers, doctors, bankers, Devs, dentists, accountants, etc. These are all high level vocations that do give a lot back to society.
Dont turn your nose up at it, you snidey prick.
I suppose it’d depend on your upbringing, if you’re poor or extremely working class like both parents on minimum wage jobs it’s a fairly prestigious job that doesn’t require the stress or hours of say a doctor.
Stable, respected, well paying job that indicates some smarts. Far better viewed than what most of the parents i knew growing up had so it’s a bit of a surprise to see people looking down on it and maybe does indicate class or regional opportunity differences.
Growing up I went to school with a couple of people who's parents were pharmacists who were very well off. They weren't just dispensing pharmacists though, they owned the pharmacy.
To be fair, before chain stores were around it was very high paying. It also had the advantage of being a job that was available to do in almost every town and village in the country. You didn't have to move to London or other large metropolitan areas.
*What qualifications do you need to be a pharmacist in the UK?
To become a pharmacist, you'll need to complete a master's of pharmacy (MPharm) degree, approved by the General Pharmaceutical Council which takes 4 years. You'll then need to complete the pharmacist foundation training scheme which takes 1 year.*
Wage
Within the NHS, the Agenda for Change pay structure has clearly defined pay bands. Newly qualified pharmacists start on Band 6, where salaries range from £35,392 to £42,618. With further study and training, it's possible to progress to Band 7 where salaries are set at £43,742 to £50,056.
I was curious myself so thought I would check it out.
They owned the pharmacy, so I'm thinking they would of made far more as a business. I've seen people comment it was more than one premises but cant confirm how many or if that's just false. Add to that dad was an NHS GP doctor, which is a decent income and well respected.
So all in all I would say they where well off enough to give the kids a very good education. Also looking at the grandparents, I'm guessing they where set up well to put his dad through uni to be a doctor.
Sorry but if I was in the situation where I was already a multimillionaire living in a $20k *a month* beach front house in California there is no way in hell I would decide to come back to the UK to go into politics and have to go to the House of Commons every day.
It was his sense of duty, a call of service to the British public whom he felt so indebted to that brought him back.
Helping the community that raised you is its own reward.
/s
Why do we have the performance in politics like "oh he's a good guy that cares about public service he's just not up to the job" can we stop pretending these predators are in it for anything but themselves!
The amount of people that were willing to let Boris off the hook because "he tried it best though".
Fucking unreal.
If effort is all it takes, make me PM, I'll try my best as well, but I'll be fucking shit.
Devil's advocate, but Sunak could have made a lot more money by staying in his old career. Probably he is trying to make a better country he just has a different definition of 'better country' and anyway he is terrible at politics so he can't do it.
Who needs more money when you already rinsed hundreds of millions out of the UK banking collapse and married the daughter of a billionaire and can buy multi million properties in different countries like ordinary people buy socks ?
He wanted power and recognition because his entire background was about being a chosen ruler over the plebs.
Its not the yearly salary that they aim for PM to get, its the connections and the prestige and the ability to sign deals that will end up having money given to them after office.
Im sure a lot of his choices are already in the interest of his wife and his inlaws companies, he conviently keeps forgetting to register conflict of interests in entities she has investments in like the big grants for childcare that somehow double for agency firms (which his wife owns a share in the 6 that made the cut), its not a massive thing but it adds up overall.
Just look at boris and truss making bank for "talking" after their stint in office, its going to be the same for rishi but he will move abroad first.
These people have no morals and are just in it for themselves, not the betterment of the country but the betterment of their group and primarily themselves sadly.
lol no, his farther in law donated to the conservative party.
He gets a safe seat.
He becomes PM
Info Sys gets a load more govt contracts.
I mean we have no evidence anything untward took place. Perhaps this is all totally innocent.
But it does make you wonder _why DIDN'T he just go off and become a rich banker?_
the power that comes with being a PM can't be bought (not completely) with money, when you pass a certain point of wealth, the next step on the greed ladder is power
Getting him out is obvious, but the real issue is that someone like this could end up PM in the first place. Usually a party will do oppo on their own candidates to weed out parasites like Sunak, because inevitably the truth about them will get out and lead to embarrassment. Are the Tories that lax at vetting their candidates, or is their pool just so shallow?
Yes to both. Also remember he lost the leadership contest to Lettuce Truss and was voted by default since nobody else stood seriously and they didn’t let party members vote a second time.
People roasting this, I think its entirely fair to expect someone governing the country to be even slightly understanding of the daily life of a person in that country. The point is that Sunak doesn't. He's completely out of touch to 99% of the people he's supposed to represent.
Love Led By Donkeys. They really are driven by a desire to let people know what kind of malarkey and shenanigans our power brokers are up to, by-passing the compromised maim-stream media and getting it straight to the public! Hopefully they’re not a one-trick donkey andnthey will do the same when Labour are in power.
The disgrace of the VIP lane needs to be properly investigated when Labour get in. Doubtful, but I'd love to see them all get what they deserve for defrauding the tax payer during one of the worst crises in history - and partying throughout to boot.
You can be Prime Minister, and help the country. Really make a difference.
Then after you've left office, the speech circuit and reputation can provide for the rest of your life.
Those years on office need someone special, different, public serving. It depends on who you have around you, it's backed up by civil servants.
Perhaps he honestly thinks he made the right decisions, in the situations he found himself in. Perhaps he did the best he could with what was available to him. Perhaps someone else wouldn't have been able to have made things better, only worse.
The world faced, and continues to face, fucked up shit. The arguments right now seem to be about reducing issues, not reversing them. For every family that is stretched way beyond what they can imagine, perhaps who is on power doesn't matter anymore. They just don't have room to breathe.
Such a good recap. It's weird how you're aware of all these things separately, but it's not until they're presented like this that you go, "Oh right. He's possibly the worst candidate for Prime Minister imaginable."
It’s a bizarre attack line to be honest. He played games at university, loads of people play financial based games…
Should we criticise anyone who plays monopoly as role playing as a landlord?
Stuff like this makes me want to defend Sunak a bit. At the end of the day, it's an attack ad that has nothing to do with party politics and full of extremely personal attacks against an individual. It feels like exactly the sort of thing that has ruined American politics and does nothing to better the discussion at hand.
I think it's appropriate to criticize a politician's background or status as being elitist and out-of-touch. What isn't appropriate is to dig out quotes of 16-year-olds or university students and act as if that is indicative of everything they stand for in later life, that's where this video crosses a line.
This video is pure spin with 44 years of material to extract embarrassing moments, clumsy remarks or genuine mistakes from and uses it to stain someone's character. There isn't a public figure alive who can survive this sort of attack and there never can be. Human's make mistakes.
To those who cheer on this sort of thing as proof that Sunak is bad, chances are you thought that anyway. This sort of video doesn't really convince anybody to change their mind, all it does is inflict an insane purity test that no genuine person can pass. There are only two types of people who can overcome this sort of attack and they prepare for it for a long time, one are the ultra-wealthy elite who take steps from birth to remove as much material about them from the internet as possible and the other are Trump-style politicians who are so corrupt that nothing ends up sticking to them.
This works in a world where both sides operate in good faith. But Sunak feels like he does not. The example from the debate that hit home for me was this paraphrased exchange
Starmer: if the PM believed his plan was working, he would not have called an early general election
Sunak: on one hand Starmer has been calling for an election and now he's saying we should delay it.
This is just politics but it felt like such a smarmy bad faith argument that it put me off and suggested a fundamental character flaw to me.
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Responding with a weak argument in a debate hardly the same as running an attack ad campaign. To be honest, if that is what Starmer said then the logic of his argument is also pretty weak, Blair did not call an early general election in 2001 because he his plans weren't working.
If you want to convince me that bad rhetorical devices in a political debate are the signs of a weak political platform then I would agree with you, but if you want to argue that such a thing justifies the video this thread is about then you're going to lose me.
Attack ads aren't just bad in principle, this one is run by a political campaign group that isn't officially linked to a party (but is very clearly partisan), so it is circumventing campaign finance regulations. This is another feature of US-style politics that is bad for democracy and not something we should be cheering on in the UK.
I guess I lean more free speech and would rather have arguments, especially bad ones, played out in public. But I get the slippery slope argument and think it's a valid risk.
There's a significant distinction between a politician making a weak argument in a political debate and third-party campaign groups running attack ads during an election.
Trouble is he is our PM, no mandate to be PM at that, came second in a vote to a loon. He is widely regarded by the public now as a nasty little shit who has had significant involvement in the decline of this nation whilst getting even richer in the background and dodging tax. He is also widely accepted as a liar and colludes with proven liars. It’s right that there is scrutiny over his background and open source information is fair game. It all paints quite an illuminating picture and explains a lot. The public can take it or leave it and make of it what they want. We have a right to know who he is, we will also publicly voice our concerns with absolute impunity. In a months time we as the public will overwhelmingly reject him and his party.
Yes, he is our PM. I agree that the things he has done and said as PM are fair game.
Digging out an awkward comment he made when he was 16 is not fair game, it shouldn't be fair game for anybody because it doesn't do what you have said. It does not paint "an illuminating picture" because it isn't representative of his political views as a politician, we don't even know if it representative of his views when he was 16. This video doesn't illuminate anything, it just crafts a narrative with found-footage that the editor of the video wants you to believe.
There is a reason that cherry-picking is derided as bad science in statistics, it is a manipulation of data that can be used to push any conclusion. This attack ad is the political equivalent of cherry-picking and anybody who claims that any insight can be drawn from it is fooling you.
Nobody has dug any of this up, it’s never been buried. This is no different from any Netflix or BBC documentary, of course the author has narrative in mind. Most of this has been in the media for years, nothing new to see here. The BBC has repeatedly used many of these clips, why? because its information freely available in the public domain, it’s not a question of fair, that’s irrelevant, but its use is fair game, its also a matter of public interest. It’s public domain information and I wouldn’t expect to see any legal challenges around its usage, Youtube host this information freely for consumption, a choice for the individual.
There is now wide regard for him as a petulant spoiled little shit who has harmed our people, our nation and caused great offence to our forefathers. The video in this threat will do little to change that.
Well, that is you missing the point for a second time in a row now.
The point under discussion isn't about public domain information, nor is it about legal challenges, nor is it about whether or not Sunak is a "petulant spoiled little shit". It is about the nature of attack ads and whether they should be part of our political culture.
All you have done so far is make it clear that you really don't like Rishi Sunak and that doesn't bother me one bit, but if you want to discuss having standards in electoral campaigns then do stick to the point under discussion.
Only watched the first three mins but strongly agree. If you don't like his policies criticise his policies. If you don't like his track record criticise that. Saying that people aren't fit to be PM based on their background is unfair.
You're allowed to comment on the character of a politician buddy. If the person appears to be a selfish arsehole then it's reasonable to suggest their policies will be self serving and not necessarily in the interests of creating a fair and just society.
What's next? "Leave Boris alone about party gate - attack the policies not the man". How pathetic.
I didn’t mention his character and I specifically said you can criticise him for his track record (which includes partygate). What are you talking about?
Yeah. I completely agree.
I say this as someone who has never voted Tory and never plans to do so.
I don't dislike Sunak and I don't understand the hate. It comes across as incredibly bitter and angry. He's a bit out of touch and perhaps not suited for the role but he's not a terrible person.
He was *fine* as PM for his brief stint and miles better than either Truss or Boris.
You'll get the hate if you step back and consider what's the fundamental difference between him, Boris, Theresa May and Liz Truss. Clue: they are all incompetent, it's something else.
Most of their videos are good but this really just isn't it. So many of the points are irrelevant or wildly misleading. A chunk of the points were literally just "he has nice things". The coffee cup point especially is absurd. Some people have special interests it's fine to spend money on those things. The RBS thing is also dumb, but I guess it will be effective because most people are financially illiterate.
Their biographies on Johnson and Rees-Mogg were biting and effective. This one just comes across as petty.
The point of the video, stated clearly right at the start, is that he lives in another world and simply can't understand what life is like for the rest of us and isn't impacted by the consequences of 14 years of Tory decline. The video does an excellent job of that.
>The coffee cup point especially is absurd
or was it "free" marketing for the firm?
Whats wrong with the RBS thing? he did benefit millions off his firm making such a dodgy move, his firm helped ruin the financial stability of our economy.
It just helps point out how out of touch he really is, its fine to be wealthy but he is not genuinely having empathy or even trying to help so its a facade that needs shutting down.
RBS was a private bank operating in a deregulated market which was let by incompetent and reckless idiots, made a shite business decision, and ultimately got bailed out by the taxpayer. None of that is sunaks fault...
You can make plenty of valid criticisms of the hedge fund industry, but this ain't it. The fact that this has cut-through is testament to the disastrous financial literacy in the UK (chalk that up as another Tory failure).
Sunak's firm bought some shares in ABN Amro (about 2% of the total - nowhere near enough to control anything), and pushed for it to be sold. RBS then bought it. No one forced them to buy it, let alone Sunak personally who would have been a junior number-cruncher at this point. RBS buying it turned out to be a terrible decision for RBS shareholders.
They made money off the sale of ABN Amro to RBS, but that wasn't in any way linked to the bailout. They would have made exactly the same amount of money off the deal if there were no crash and/or there were no bailout.
When my brother sells my Ferrari for a gummy bear at the market, surely I'm entitled to have a dim view of both my brother and the person who bought it from him no? Or maybe that's just how capitalism works.
Snapshot of _Rishi Sunak - The Movie_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnwurflqrfQ) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnwurflqrfQ) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I always think back to the tory party conference speech where he described his childhood growing up as the son of a pharmacist. He told it like he was this kid growing up on the wrong side of the tracks who has defied the odds to make his way in the world. He seemed to have no sense that there were millions and millions of UK residents who would aspire to the wealth and lifestyle of a pharmacist's family. He grew up in relative privilege and married into unimaginable privilege. Completely and utterly out of touch with the average person's concerns and motivations, plus lacking even the most basic empathy. Clueless. Completely clueless.
Right, I know this is relative, but someone who’s Parents are a doctor and a Pharmacist doesn’t typically end up head boy at the most expensive private school in the country. So either he was very lucky, or this “typical middle class” upbringing is a lie, and he got help from somewhere.
I thought his dad was not 'just' a pharmacist but owned the pharmacy business, which was more than one pharmacy.
100% - something smells off. A combined household salary of £100k-£150k is hardly Richie rich. There's hundreds and thousands of families that have 2 Doctors as parents and they do NOT end up in the same position as this ponce. He's tried to paint himself as ordinary or coming from a humble, middling background, but it's just bullshit - he comes from a migrant background that had/has wealth & prestige abroad and had wealth here. He was definitely not middle class IMO. I've met so many 1st generation immigrants that claim to be working class and paint themselves as being hard done by, yet their family have assets and wealth totaling hundreds of thousands / millions abroad. Fucking laughable. Sunak is on the extreme end of this type of situation.
"My father was humble car mechanic in India and eventually we own a Jaguar. By that I mean he founded Tata Motors and Jaguar is our subsidiary."
Sunak's Grandad has an OBE, sat on the board of Inland revenue and was none of the highest ranking Tax officials in the UK. He went to a school older than Eton and one of the handful considered on par with Eton for exclusivity Members of his family were in charge of running the administrative and tax arm of the Empire in colonial Africa. You don't get to marry into an upper caste billionaire bhramin family without family prestige on your side.
What school did his grandad go to?
That might explain his disrespect for D day and the veterans - his family might not have any war time stories to share.
Aside from what the other poster said about his grandad being pretty high up running colonial Africa, it's worth pointing out that working as a doctor just straight up isn't quite as extremely prestigious as it used to be. Back in the 70s/80s it would have been like one of the three or four BIG MONEY upper-midde-class careers alongside law and finance.
Thank you.
I'm not defending Sunak here, but it's a pretty damning indictment on the state of Britain when you're representing being a pharmacist as an amazing level of wealth and privilege.
I mean its a highest caste Hindu family - otherwise they would never have got their son to talk to the daughter of another Brahmin caste family (let alone a billionaire.) They had money and prestige. Let's not try and compare these dudes to an ordinary middle-class British family. Also "being a pharmacist" is not the same as owning the Pharmacy is it?
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I'm not attacking you or your point. I think it's a sign of the malaise of the country that a pretty commonplace middle-class job is seen as so much relative privilege. It shows have badly off a lot of people are.
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> I think it's a sign of the malaise of the country that a pretty commonplace middle-class job is seen as so much relative privilege. Yes, I understood that. Edit: this has to be the most brittle blocking I've yet encountered.
Average pharmacist salary is still around 46% higher than the median wage in the country. Definitely “alright” territory. This isn’t even including the fact that Sunaks dad was more than just a pharmacist.
>Clueless. Completely clueless. He's not clueless. He knows what he's doing, and what he's doing is working for the richest in society. He's not different to most of the Tory leaders of the past 40 years.
Tbf to Sunak, I imagine being the son of a pharmacist probably puts his lifestyle as what most people consider middle class (average wage for a pharmacist now is £51k). That’s not really the level at which he shouldn’t understand real life nor is it indicative of major privilege. His public school education probably did more to skew that, than the relative wealth of his family. I don’t earn much less than that and I’m hardly eating caviar and oppressing the proles.
His dad was a doctor, I don’t know why we’re focusing on his mum who was the pharmacist. It’s not like they were mega wealthy, but he had a comfortable upbringing.
I think he emphasises it because whilst it is comfortable, it's not "unreasonably" so - people generally don't begrudge pharmacists and doctors their relatively high incomes, unlike billionaires.
Likewise doctors while highly paid still sit firmly in the middle classes. He’s likely not to have ever wanted for anything, probably has never been around poverty but it wasn’t like he was growing up the son of a billionaire like his wife.
Also wasn’t he grandad a tax collector in India/british raj for the British empire
Lots of Indians would have been. It’s got nothing to do with anything.
His grandad was one of the highest ranking tax officials in the Empire and in the UK, he sat on the board of Inland revenue when he migrated here and received an OBE. My grandad was an engineer in Kenya and comes from a fairly wealthy background, but Sunak's family is another level
Who aspires to be a pharmacist? That surely is seen by many as average and not aspirational financially
I think there’s probably a difference between being a pharmacist at say, Boots or a high street pharmacy… and owning your own pharmacy like Sunak’s parents.
Similar people that aspire to be engineers, doctors, bankers, Devs, dentists, accountants, etc. These are all high level vocations that do give a lot back to society. Dont turn your nose up at it, you snidey prick.
I suppose it’d depend on your upbringing, if you’re poor or extremely working class like both parents on minimum wage jobs it’s a fairly prestigious job that doesn’t require the stress or hours of say a doctor.
Stable, respected, well paying job that indicates some smarts. Far better viewed than what most of the parents i knew growing up had so it’s a bit of a surprise to see people looking down on it and maybe does indicate class or regional opportunity differences.
Growing up I went to school with a couple of people who's parents were pharmacists who were very well off. They weren't just dispensing pharmacists though, they owned the pharmacy.
The dictionary definition of a privileged viewpoint. Surely.
To be fair, before chain stores were around it was very high paying. It also had the advantage of being a job that was available to do in almost every town and village in the country. You didn't have to move to London or other large metropolitan areas.
*What qualifications do you need to be a pharmacist in the UK? To become a pharmacist, you'll need to complete a master's of pharmacy (MPharm) degree, approved by the General Pharmaceutical Council which takes 4 years. You'll then need to complete the pharmacist foundation training scheme which takes 1 year.* Wage Within the NHS, the Agenda for Change pay structure has clearly defined pay bands. Newly qualified pharmacists start on Band 6, where salaries range from £35,392 to £42,618. With further study and training, it's possible to progress to Band 7 where salaries are set at £43,742 to £50,056. I was curious myself so thought I would check it out. They owned the pharmacy, so I'm thinking they would of made far more as a business. I've seen people comment it was more than one premises but cant confirm how many or if that's just false. Add to that dad was an NHS GP doctor, which is a decent income and well respected. So all in all I would say they where well off enough to give the kids a very good education. Also looking at the grandparents, I'm guessing they where set up well to put his dad through uni to be a doctor.
Sorry but if I was in the situation where I was already a multimillionaire living in a $20k *a month* beach front house in California there is no way in hell I would decide to come back to the UK to go into politics and have to go to the House of Commons every day.
When you’ve got all the money you need, then power, attention and renown become some of the only things you can’t just straight out acquire
That’s because you’re not a sociopath. I think 99% of the ultra wealthy have something deeply wrong with them.
It was his sense of duty, a call of service to the British public whom he felt so indebted to that brought him back. Helping the community that raised you is its own reward. /s
Why do we have the performance in politics like "oh he's a good guy that cares about public service he's just not up to the job" can we stop pretending these predators are in it for anything but themselves!
The amount of people that were willing to let Boris off the hook because "he tried it best though". Fucking unreal. If effort is all it takes, make me PM, I'll try my best as well, but I'll be fucking shit.
Devil's advocate, but Sunak could have made a lot more money by staying in his old career. Probably he is trying to make a better country he just has a different definition of 'better country' and anyway he is terrible at politics so he can't do it.
False dichotomy: power and prestige come from more than money. He can be self-serving at a relative financial loss.
Who needs more money when you already rinsed hundreds of millions out of the UK banking collapse and married the daughter of a billionaire and can buy multi million properties in different countries like ordinary people buy socks ? He wanted power and recognition because his entire background was about being a chosen ruler over the plebs.
Its not the yearly salary that they aim for PM to get, its the connections and the prestige and the ability to sign deals that will end up having money given to them after office. Im sure a lot of his choices are already in the interest of his wife and his inlaws companies, he conviently keeps forgetting to register conflict of interests in entities she has investments in like the big grants for childcare that somehow double for agency firms (which his wife owns a share in the 6 that made the cut), its not a massive thing but it adds up overall. Just look at boris and truss making bank for "talking" after their stint in office, its going to be the same for rishi but he will move abroad first. These people have no morals and are just in it for themselves, not the betterment of the country but the betterment of their group and primarily themselves sadly.
lol no, his farther in law donated to the conservative party. He gets a safe seat. He becomes PM Info Sys gets a load more govt contracts. I mean we have no evidence anything untward took place. Perhaps this is all totally innocent. But it does make you wonder _why DIDN'T he just go off and become a rich banker?_
If you have no evidence what makes you think anything untoward happened?
It’s more just a set of happy coincidences.
the power that comes with being a PM can't be bought (not completely) with money, when you pass a certain point of wealth, the next step on the greed ladder is power
Always thought he was out of touch and a bit arrogant, but this timeline really lays it all out in the open. Horrendous. Get this man out
Getting him out is obvious, but the real issue is that someone like this could end up PM in the first place. Usually a party will do oppo on their own candidates to weed out parasites like Sunak, because inevitably the truth about them will get out and lead to embarrassment. Are the Tories that lax at vetting their candidates, or is their pool just so shallow?
>Are the Tories that lax at vetting their candidates, or is their pool just so shallow? Yes.
Yes to both. Also remember he lost the leadership contest to Lettuce Truss and was voted by default since nobody else stood seriously and they didn’t let party members vote a second time.
He uses a kindergarten teacher tone of voice in all of his public speaking. It's obvious what he thinks of the public and I can't stand him.
People roasting this, I think its entirely fair to expect someone governing the country to be even slightly understanding of the daily life of a person in that country. The point is that Sunak doesn't. He's completely out of touch to 99% of the people he's supposed to represent.
Love Led By Donkeys. They really are driven by a desire to let people know what kind of malarkey and shenanigans our power brokers are up to, by-passing the compromised maim-stream media and getting it straight to the public! Hopefully they’re not a one-trick donkey andnthey will do the same when Labour are in power.
Oh they absolutely will carry on if they don't like what they see from Kier. They aren't labour associated at all.
They already did a pro-PR banner drop outside Labour HQ. :D
The disgrace of the VIP lane needs to be properly investigated when Labour get in. Doubtful, but I'd love to see them all get what they deserve for defrauding the tax payer during one of the worst crises in history - and partying throughout to boot.
I love how they phrase investment competitions held by the society as "roleplaying games where they pretend to be bankers" haha
You can be Prime Minister, and help the country. Really make a difference. Then after you've left office, the speech circuit and reputation can provide for the rest of your life. Those years on office need someone special, different, public serving. It depends on who you have around you, it's backed up by civil servants. Perhaps he honestly thinks he made the right decisions, in the situations he found himself in. Perhaps he did the best he could with what was available to him. Perhaps someone else wouldn't have been able to have made things better, only worse. The world faced, and continues to face, fucked up shit. The arguments right now seem to be about reducing issues, not reversing them. For every family that is stretched way beyond what they can imagine, perhaps who is on power doesn't matter anymore. They just don't have room to breathe.
Such a good recap. It's weird how you're aware of all these things separately, but it's not until they're presented like this that you go, "Oh right. He's possibly the worst candidate for Prime Minister imaginable."
"organising ropleplaying games" ehh thats not that bad "where they pretend to be bankers" oh
It’s a bizarre attack line to be honest. He played games at university, loads of people play financial based games… Should we criticise anyone who plays monopoly as role playing as a landlord?
He is the unelected PM, elected by what percentage of the Population? 7%? How democratic
Stuff like this makes me want to defend Sunak a bit. At the end of the day, it's an attack ad that has nothing to do with party politics and full of extremely personal attacks against an individual. It feels like exactly the sort of thing that has ruined American politics and does nothing to better the discussion at hand. I think it's appropriate to criticize a politician's background or status as being elitist and out-of-touch. What isn't appropriate is to dig out quotes of 16-year-olds or university students and act as if that is indicative of everything they stand for in later life, that's where this video crosses a line. This video is pure spin with 44 years of material to extract embarrassing moments, clumsy remarks or genuine mistakes from and uses it to stain someone's character. There isn't a public figure alive who can survive this sort of attack and there never can be. Human's make mistakes. To those who cheer on this sort of thing as proof that Sunak is bad, chances are you thought that anyway. This sort of video doesn't really convince anybody to change their mind, all it does is inflict an insane purity test that no genuine person can pass. There are only two types of people who can overcome this sort of attack and they prepare for it for a long time, one are the ultra-wealthy elite who take steps from birth to remove as much material about them from the internet as possible and the other are Trump-style politicians who are so corrupt that nothing ends up sticking to them.
This works in a world where both sides operate in good faith. But Sunak feels like he does not. The example from the debate that hit home for me was this paraphrased exchange Starmer: if the PM believed his plan was working, he would not have called an early general election Sunak: on one hand Starmer has been calling for an election and now he's saying we should delay it. This is just politics but it felt like such a smarmy bad faith argument that it put me off and suggested a fundamental character flaw to me.
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Responding with a weak argument in a debate hardly the same as running an attack ad campaign. To be honest, if that is what Starmer said then the logic of his argument is also pretty weak, Blair did not call an early general election in 2001 because he his plans weren't working. If you want to convince me that bad rhetorical devices in a political debate are the signs of a weak political platform then I would agree with you, but if you want to argue that such a thing justifies the video this thread is about then you're going to lose me. Attack ads aren't just bad in principle, this one is run by a political campaign group that isn't officially linked to a party (but is very clearly partisan), so it is circumventing campaign finance regulations. This is another feature of US-style politics that is bad for democracy and not something we should be cheering on in the UK.
I guess I lean more free speech and would rather have arguments, especially bad ones, played out in public. But I get the slippery slope argument and think it's a valid risk.
There's a significant distinction between a politician making a weak argument in a political debate and third-party campaign groups running attack ads during an election.
Trouble is he is our PM, no mandate to be PM at that, came second in a vote to a loon. He is widely regarded by the public now as a nasty little shit who has had significant involvement in the decline of this nation whilst getting even richer in the background and dodging tax. He is also widely accepted as a liar and colludes with proven liars. It’s right that there is scrutiny over his background and open source information is fair game. It all paints quite an illuminating picture and explains a lot. The public can take it or leave it and make of it what they want. We have a right to know who he is, we will also publicly voice our concerns with absolute impunity. In a months time we as the public will overwhelmingly reject him and his party.
Yes, he is our PM. I agree that the things he has done and said as PM are fair game. Digging out an awkward comment he made when he was 16 is not fair game, it shouldn't be fair game for anybody because it doesn't do what you have said. It does not paint "an illuminating picture" because it isn't representative of his political views as a politician, we don't even know if it representative of his views when he was 16. This video doesn't illuminate anything, it just crafts a narrative with found-footage that the editor of the video wants you to believe. There is a reason that cherry-picking is derided as bad science in statistics, it is a manipulation of data that can be used to push any conclusion. This attack ad is the political equivalent of cherry-picking and anybody who claims that any insight can be drawn from it is fooling you.
Nobody has dug any of this up, it’s never been buried. This is no different from any Netflix or BBC documentary, of course the author has narrative in mind. Most of this has been in the media for years, nothing new to see here. The BBC has repeatedly used many of these clips, why? because its information freely available in the public domain, it’s not a question of fair, that’s irrelevant, but its use is fair game, its also a matter of public interest. It’s public domain information and I wouldn’t expect to see any legal challenges around its usage, Youtube host this information freely for consumption, a choice for the individual. There is now wide regard for him as a petulant spoiled little shit who has harmed our people, our nation and caused great offence to our forefathers. The video in this threat will do little to change that.
Well, that is you missing the point for a second time in a row now. The point under discussion isn't about public domain information, nor is it about legal challenges, nor is it about whether or not Sunak is a "petulant spoiled little shit". It is about the nature of attack ads and whether they should be part of our political culture. All you have done so far is make it clear that you really don't like Rishi Sunak and that doesn't bother me one bit, but if you want to discuss having standards in electoral campaigns then do stick to the point under discussion.
I’m going to politely decline from sticking to any themes or points dictated by another reddit user.
You are entirely free to do so, but don't be surprised about an inability to change anybody's mind when you don't address the point they made.
Ok goodbye
It’s a good question. Is this sort of attack reprehensible?
Attack? What attack, whats the question?
Only watched the first three mins but strongly agree. If you don't like his policies criticise his policies. If you don't like his track record criticise that. Saying that people aren't fit to be PM based on their background is unfair.
You're allowed to comment on the character of a politician buddy. If the person appears to be a selfish arsehole then it's reasonable to suggest their policies will be self serving and not necessarily in the interests of creating a fair and just society. What's next? "Leave Boris alone about party gate - attack the policies not the man". How pathetic.
I didn’t mention his character and I specifically said you can criticise him for his track record (which includes partygate). What are you talking about?
Yeah. I completely agree. I say this as someone who has never voted Tory and never plans to do so. I don't dislike Sunak and I don't understand the hate. It comes across as incredibly bitter and angry. He's a bit out of touch and perhaps not suited for the role but he's not a terrible person. He was *fine* as PM for his brief stint and miles better than either Truss or Boris.
You'll get the hate if you step back and consider what's the fundamental difference between him, Boris, Theresa May and Liz Truss. Clue: they are all incompetent, it's something else.
Most of their videos are good but this really just isn't it. So many of the points are irrelevant or wildly misleading. A chunk of the points were literally just "he has nice things". The coffee cup point especially is absurd. Some people have special interests it's fine to spend money on those things. The RBS thing is also dumb, but I guess it will be effective because most people are financially illiterate. Their biographies on Johnson and Rees-Mogg were biting and effective. This one just comes across as petty.
The point of the video, stated clearly right at the start, is that he lives in another world and simply can't understand what life is like for the rest of us and isn't impacted by the consequences of 14 years of Tory decline. The video does an excellent job of that.
>The coffee cup point especially is absurd or was it "free" marketing for the firm? Whats wrong with the RBS thing? he did benefit millions off his firm making such a dodgy move, his firm helped ruin the financial stability of our economy. It just helps point out how out of touch he really is, its fine to be wealthy but he is not genuinely having empathy or even trying to help so its a facade that needs shutting down.
The "forces a deal" part
RBS was a private bank operating in a deregulated market which was let by incompetent and reckless idiots, made a shite business decision, and ultimately got bailed out by the taxpayer. None of that is sunaks fault...
You can make plenty of valid criticisms of the hedge fund industry, but this ain't it. The fact that this has cut-through is testament to the disastrous financial literacy in the UK (chalk that up as another Tory failure). Sunak's firm bought some shares in ABN Amro (about 2% of the total - nowhere near enough to control anything), and pushed for it to be sold. RBS then bought it. No one forced them to buy it, let alone Sunak personally who would have been a junior number-cruncher at this point. RBS buying it turned out to be a terrible decision for RBS shareholders. They made money off the sale of ABN Amro to RBS, but that wasn't in any way linked to the bailout. They would have made exactly the same amount of money off the deal if there were no crash and/or there were no bailout.
When my brother sells my Ferrari for a gummy bear at the market, surely I'm entitled to have a dim view of both my brother and the person who bought it from him no? Or maybe that's just how capitalism works.