With her stripe on the side, her fitted suits and her wide smile with sparkling teeth, Rishi Sunak, 39, has the appearance of an ideal son-in-law. His brilliant career accentuates this impeccable profile: Winchester College, a top-of-the-range English boarding school, then Oxford University for studies in economics, politics and philosophy (the royal road, with the maximum score, a "first") , and MBA at Stanford University, in the United States, with a scholarship.
He followed up with a meteoric career in finance (Goldman Sachs, followed by hedge funds) then, five years after entering politics (he was elected MP in 2015 in Richmond, conservative bastion of Yorkshire), he was appointed on February 13, 2020 Chancellor of the Exchequer. Now the centerpiece of Boris Johnson’s cabinet and a strong player in the British economy, the juvenile Sunak, who has climbed the ranks without leaving a trace, will have to enter the arena. On Wednesday March 11, he will present the first British budget in the post-Brexit era. The exercise is eagerly awaited, but dangerous.
Mr. Sunak is responsible for turning the promises of Boris Johnson into reality. The bright future of post-Brexit, the major works intended to straighten the north of England (lagging behind London and the south of the country), the improvement of health services that are creaking everywhere… A him to translate the enthusiastic but rather vague vision of the British Prime Minister into hard cash.
The coronavirus epidemic obviously does not make his job any easier. Difficult to present a long-term budget, when the health and economic emergency requires immediate measures. The White Paper on infrastructure, which was planned in parallel, was also rejected. Jill Rutter, of the Institute for Government think tank, believes that Mr. Sunak could "Come back to the fall with an amending budget, and be content with an ambitious budget on March 11".
For the most part British, this man with such responsibility remains a complete stranger. Until his surprise promotion by Boris Johnson less than a month ago, he had remained largely under the radar, having only been appointed Secretary of State for the Treasury six months earlier. "We hardly know him. We don't really know what his political convictions are ”said an opposition MP to Westminster, who, like many of his fellow students, was very curious to know what budget Mr. Sunak would manage to deliver.
