October 25, 2022: Rishi Sunak becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. He is the 1st nonwhite person, and the 1st non-Christian person, to hold the office.
Rishi Sunak (his professional name is also his entire birth name) was born on May 12, 1980, making him 42 years old when he moved into 10 Downing Street. Britain is one of those nations, Canada (24 Sussex Drive) being another, where the official residence of the head of government does not have a fancy name.
He was born in Southampton, Hampshire, on the south coast of England, a major port city. His parents were born in African countries that were then British colonies: His father, a physician, in Kenya; and his mother, a pharmacist, in Tanzania. He has a brother and a sister, both accomplished in their fields as well. His grandparents were from the Punjab province of India.
The family is Hindu, which is the dominant religion of India. Given that Britain is about 60 percent Christian, 33 percent without a stated religion, 4.4 percent Muslim, 1.3 percent Hindu, and 0.4 percent Jewish, it shouldn't be surprising that the country had a Hindu Prime Minister before it had a Jewish one. Given that the country is about 86 percent white, 4.9 percent South Asian, 3 percent black and 2.1 percent East Asian, it also shouldn't be surprising that the country had an Asian Prime Minister before it had a black one.
Sunak went to what Americans would call high school at Winchester College in Winchester, Hampshire; and graduated from Lincoln College, Oxford University in 2001. He went to America as a Fulbright Scholar, and earned an MBA from Stanford University outside San Francisco in 2006. It was at Stanford that he met Akshata Murty, the daughter of an Indian billionaire. She is a month older than he is. They married in 2009, and have 2 daughters, Anoushka and Krishna. Through his wife's stock in her father's company, Sunak is one of the few Prime Ministers whose wealth exceeds that of the monarch, although the monarchy has access to far more money.
Sunak worked in the British office of Goldman Sachs, and in 2015 was elected to the House of Commons for Richmond in North Yorkshire. His rise from backbencher to 10 Downing in just 7 years is unusual, but not a record. He supported "Brexit," Britain's break from the European Union, in the 2016 referendum. For this, he was rewarded with a place in the Cabinet of Prime Minister Theresa May.
May couldn't make Brexit work, so she was forced out of the job in 2019, in favor of Boris Johnson. In 2020, Johnson appointed Sunak to be Chancellor of the Exchequer, equivalent to the Secretary of the Treasury in America or Minister of Finance in most countries with a parliamentary system of government.
In July 2022, with Britain hopelessly stuck in recession due to 12 years of the Conservative Party's governance having reduced the value of the pound and raised unemployment, and Johnson himself mired in personal scandals, his government collapsed, with the resignation of several Cabinet members, including Sunak. Johnson resigned, and Sunak stood for Conservative Party Leader.
He finished 2nd to Liz Truss, who had been Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. Accepting her as the new Prime Minister was the last official act as head of state of Queen Elizabeth II, who died 2 days later.
Little did anyone know that the last act of the longest-reigning English or British monarch would be to appoint the shortest-lasting Prime Minister. Truss' proposed budget gained no support, not even from other Conservatives (a.k.a. "Tories"), and she had to resign the office after just 45 days.
With Johnson hinting at running for Party Leader in an "I told you so" campaign, the Party rallied around Sunak, thinking his business expertise made him the right man for the job, in spite of his race and his religion, which do not exactly appeal to Tories. But, being conservative, and not of the American stripe, they are about money first and other concerns second, and they chose him.
On October 25, he visited Buckingham Palace, and gave the monarch, King Charles III, the magic words: "I can form a government." The King, who probably hoped he would receive his Coronation (currently scheduled for May 6, 2023) before he had to receive his 1st new Prime Minister, gave his assent.
Beyond the novelty of his race and his religion, Sunak is the youngest Prime Minister since Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool, took office at a few months younger in 1812, and held the office for 15 years, including the defeat of Napoleon. William Pitt the Younger, whose father William Pitt the Elder had also been Prime Minister, remains the youngest Prime Minister in the country's history, only 24 when he first took office in 1783. Sunak is the 1st Prime Minister to represent a district in Yorkshire since Harold Wilson retired in 1974.
Since the Conservatives last took power from the Labour Party through election, he is their 5th different Prime Minister in 12 years. David Cameron (2010-16), May (2016-19), Johnson and Truss all had to give up the job due mainly to their mishandling of the national economy.
And yet, the Tories have won general elections in 2015, 2017 and 2019, by painting the Labour Party, with help from the defamations and outright lies printed by conservative-controlled national newspapers, as out-of-touch elitists, extreme leftists, and anti-Semites (due to some ill-advised positions by their former leader, Jeremy Corbyn). The Tories currently hold a 357-196 lead over Labour in the House of Commons. By law, the next election must come no later than January 23, 2025.
There are 7 former Prime Ministers currently living: Truss, Johnson, May, Cameron, Gordon Brown (2007-10, currently the last Leader of the Labour Party to hold the office), Tony Blair (1997-2007) and John Major (1990-97).
UPDATE: Sunak called an election for July 4, 2024, and the Labour Party won it, making Sir Keir Starmer, who in 2020 replaced Corbyn as Party Leader, the new Prime Minister. The Conservative Party replaced him as Leader, and thus Leader of the Opposition, with Olukemi "Kemi" Badenoch, a Londoner whose parents were Nigerian, making her the 1st black person to be Leader of a major party in Britain. She had served in the Cabinet under Sunak and Truss.
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October 25, 2022 was a Tuesday. Baseball was between its League Championship Series and its World Series, with the Houston Astros set to play the Philadelphia Phillies. Football was in midweek. There were 4 games played in the NBA:
* The Washington Wizards beat the Detroit Pistons, 120-99 at the Capital One Center in Washington.
* The New Orleans Pelicans beat the Dallas Mavericks, 113-111 at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. Luka Dončić led all scorers on the night with 37 points.
* The Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 108-94 at the Paycom Center in Oklahoma City.
* And the Phoenix Suns beat the Golden State Warriors, 134-105 at the Footprint Center (now the Mortgage Matchup Center) in Phoenix.
And there were 10 games played in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers lost to the Colorado Avalanche, 3-2 in a shootout at Madison Square Garden.
* The New Jersey Devils beat the Detroit Red Wings, 6-2 at the Little Caesars Arena in Detroit. The Devils got goals from 6 different players.
* The Minnesota Wild beat the Montreal Canadiens, 3-1 at the Bell Centre in Montreal.
* The Boston Bruins beat the Dallas Stars, 3-1 at the TD Garden in Boston.
* The Arizona Coyotes beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 6-3 at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus.
* The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Florida Panthers, 4-2 at the United Center in Chicago.
* The Calgary Flames beat the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-1 at the Saddledome in Calgary.
* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-2 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.
* The Vegas Golden Knights beat the San Jose Sharks, 4-2 at the SAP Center in San Jose, California.
* And the Seattle Kraken beat the Buffalo Sabres, 5-1 at the Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle.
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