October 2022 Full PDF final

INTERNATIONAL
SENSIBLE SUNAK BECOMES BRITAIN’S FIRST NON-WHITE PM
King Charles III welcomes Rishi Sunak during an audience at
Buckingham Palace, London, where he invited the newly elected
leader of the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister
and form a new government. REUTERS
Highly regarded as a sensible personality, Rishi
Sunak has become Britain's first non-white Prime
Minister of Indian origin – thereby having won the
contest to lead the Conservative Party. He is entrusted
with guiding a highly divided nation through
an economic downturn that is likely to leave millions
of people poorer. Sunak, 42, is one of the richest
politicians in Westminster. He is also the country's
youngest leader in modern times and the third in
less than two months.
A brief account of Rishi Sunak
Rishi Sunak was born on May 12, 1980, in Southampton,
Hampshire, South East England. His grandparents
were Indian. His father was a general practitioner,
while his mother was a pharmacist who ran a local
drugstore. He studied in Winchester College. Sunak
studied philosophy, politics, and economics at Lincoln
College, Oxford. He was the leader of the Oxford Trading
& Investment Society, which gave students the chance
to learn about financial markets and global trading.
Sunak worked as an intern for the Conservative Party
while he was a student at Oxford. He pursued his MBA
at Stanford University as a Fulbright scholar.
Business career
Sunak was an analyst with the investment bank
Goldman Sachs from 2001 to 2004. In September
2006, he quit his previous job, joined The Children's
Investment Fund Management (TCI), and was made
a partner. In 2009, he joined Theleme Partners, a different
hedge fund company. He was also the director
of the investment company Catamaran Ventures,
which was owned by his father-in-law, businessman
N. R. Narayana Murthy.
Political career
He was selected as the Conservative candidate for Richmond
in 2014. (Yorks). The Conservative Party held the
seat for more than 100 years. He co-authored a report
on BME communities in the UK while serving as the
head of Policy Exchange’s Black and Minority Ethnic
(BME) Research Unit that year. He was chosen as Richmond's
MP in the 2015 general election (Yorks). He was
a representative on the Select Committee for the Environment,
Food, and Rural Affairs from 2015 to 2017.
In 2016, he voted for the EU referendum. He also authored
a paper for the Centre for Policy Studies. It supported
the idea of free ports after Brexit. The next year,
he wrote another report that supported the idea of a
retail bond market for small and medium-sized enterprises
(SMEs). During the 2017 General Elections, he
was re-elected from the same seat. From January 2018
to July 2019, he was the Under-Secretary of State for
the Parliament. In the 2019 contest for the leadership
of the Conservative Party, he supported former Prime
Minister Boris Johnson. In fact, he co-wrote an article
for a British national daily to promote Johnson during
the campaign in June 2019.
In February 2020, he became the Chancellor of the
UK government. His tenure in the office of the Chancellor
was marked by the Covid-19 pandemic. He was
wildly lauded for guiding the British economy in a
scenario that no one ever saw before. He publicly
resigned from Boris Johnson’s cabinet after the revelation
of the Chris Pincher scandal. As he was seen
as a major ally of Johnson, his resignation triggered
an avalanche of other resignations and the eventual
downfall of Boris Johnson.
CHALLENGES AHEAD FOR RISHI SUNAK
Sunak received the most challenging economic and political legacy
of any British leader after the World War Two and would be confined
by the errors committed by his forebear Truss. Britain is experiencing
unprecedented levels of inflation. It is now higher than 10%. The
expense of living is out of control for consumers as actual incomes
are declining. They are experiencing a nightmare with their finances.
Sunak will need to come up with strategies to control inflation and
the recession as he has to restore confidence in the markets. He has
to coordinate spending reductions and tax increases with the Bank
of England. A financial report addressing these problems is due on
October 31.
Sunak had earlier pledged to tighten immigration restrictions to the
UK. Sunak had promised to tighten the criteria for who is eligible
for asylum while introducing an annual cap on the number of refugees.
In spite of legal obstacles, he also backed a government plan
to deport illegal immigrants seeking refuge in the UK to Rwanda for
processing. Sunak wants to implement "enhanced powers" that will
allow him to detain, tag, and watch over anyone who is entering the
UK illegally. This requires an immediate plan of action.
In the upcoming days, the UK will experience a wave of strikes. A rail
union has already declared a week of industrial action in November in
response to a disagreement over wages, job security, and other working
conditions. Higher education professionals in the United Kingdom
have voted to strike over salary, working conditions, and pensions.
Before Christmas, more than 70,000 employees at 150 colleges
may go on strike.
MAJOR PROMISES AS PRIME MINISTER
Guarantees that taxes will be reduced "once we've gripped inflation," adding that it is a matter of
when not if.
Promises to lower the basic income tax rate by 1p in April 2024 and another 3p by the end of the
upcoming Parliament.
Promises to eliminate the 5% VAT on household energy for a year if the price cap on bills for the
average household goes above £3,000.
States that independent pay review bodies should decide on pay deals in the public sector.
As chancellor, he has increased National Insurance by 1.25 pence per pound to finance for health
and social services. He would also simultaneously increase the salary threshold to £12,570.
Revealed the plan to raise the corporate tax from 19% to 25% in April 2023.
"I pledge that I will serve you with
integrity and humility and I will
work day in, day out to deliver
for the British people. The United
Kingdom is a great country, but
there is no doubt we face a profound
economic challenge. We
now need stability and unity, and
I will make it my utmost priority
to bring our party and our country
together because that is the only
way we will overcome the challenges
we face and build a better,
more prosperous future for our
children and our grandchildren"
Rishi Sunak
in hisFirst Speech as British PM
Ensures the maintenance of defense spending and advises that the present minimum level of 2%
of GDP be considered as a "floor, not a ceiling."
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