So could, in my opinion, a truly wealthy person be a successful prime minister? I reiterate that the answer has to be that it is possible. But reframe the question to ask can a person who espouses the accumulation of wealth, and who already enjoyed that privilege be a successful prime minister and my answer has to be that I do not think that possible.
So anyone who has proven themselves to be even competent in the real world of actually doing things cannot be PM. That’s going to improve the talent pool, isn’t it?
Whereas a failed accountant from Ely who is reduced to spouting crap to hustle for grants is more than qualified to pontificate on any subject from global banking to the environment (and probably quantum physics)
Is the potato’s reference to wealthy meaning those who earned/created it themselves? If, in this context, he’s referring also to rich boy sunak – who I believe married it – he really ought to do a bot of research (i.e. wikipedia which is likely a primary source for so much he does).
The real question should be why do some become very wealthy by being prime waster?
I think Sunak married most of it, but put himself in the position to do so by earning a fair chunk himself beforehand.
The tax return Spud is talking about refers solely to Rishi’s own money. His wife is taxed independently.
The potato is now so bitter and deluded that he’s almost ready for public office. When will Sir Keir Armrest employ him?
That’s normal innit? Wifes are not their husband’s chattel, people are taxed as people not as households.
Apparently Sunak is the richest PM we’ve had on his own merits, if that’s the right word, without the need for his wife’s pile.
It’s actually very recent, Decades only. And Smurf is on record as saying that it’s got to go.
I imagine that Lord Rosebery was quite wealthy, as were Campbell-Bannerman, Macmillan, Douglas-Home,Walpole and Wellington (after his sojourn in India). They enjoyed variable degrees of success as PM but then you have to compare with the comparative paupers such as Blair, Brown, Lloyd-George, Callaghan etc
It’s been a while since Murphy put his envy of the successful on display.
Good to know that somewhere in the backwaters of his mind he knows he’s a failure.
Sure, Rishi the midget is rich as Croesus compared to most of us plebs and that showed with the whole debacle over his wife’s non-domiciled status during his time as Chancellor.
I have no problem with the wealthy who have climbed the greasy pole as Dave Cameron and Gideon Osborne did, holding the great offices of state, including that of PM.
I do have a problem with him losing the election process to become PM and then effectively ousting his boss in a coup d’etat, but I’m holding my ammunition on that one until we get to the election in a little over 12 months.
Has reached that stage in life when retrospection looms large. Either moderately pleased with the way things turned out, or disappointed over the choices he made – the sliding doors syndrome. Alas we can’t turn the clock back. Tough on the wife. There’s only so many times you can stomach “I could have been a contender!”
Candidly I say unto you: it is easier for a retired accountant to get into the House of Lords than it is for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Tax Justice.
“refers solely to Rishi’s own money”
I’m not sure there’s much point using logic to respond to the sort of shitebags who claim Sunak has the wealth of Croesus while knowing perfectly well that his wife is rich but that all the bollocks about billions is based on assuming she’ll inherit all her father’s money and that that will indeed still be billions when he dies.
I have objections to Sunak but I find the the lying about his wealth beneath contempt.
Spud’s new “like” buttons and opinion polls are revealing.
He always claims 10s if not 100s of thousands of visitors.
His opinion polls put the real numbers of readers in perspective. A few hundred at best.
It’s like his 1/4 million “followers” on twitter. His posts rarely get more than a few hundred “likes”. I’ve wanted to ask him if he thinks that means the vast majority of his followers don’t like what he posts, but can’t be bothered.
From his recent warbling on financing himself, I think he thinks he can monetise his “huge” social media following. Should be funny.
jgh…. Are you sure the Elyan Potato shares that philosophy? Or were you being sarcastic?
Sometimes it’s hard to tell..
But reframe the question yet again to ask why a person who espouses the accumulation of wealth, and who already enjoyed that privilege *wants* to be be a prime minister at all. The pay is comparatively poor, the job is always ‘on’, and you have to put up with all the backstabbers and idiots. And the Opposition is no better.
@ Diogenes
That’s a good start, but the Marquess of Salisbury was probably richer than Roseberry, and Asquith had made a pile before entering Downing Street, as had Stanley Baldwin (who inherited a family business and grew it)
It used to be a thing, especially in local government, that you’d make a pile and then “give back” by serving in elected office. It was seen as a duty and an expectation.
Stanley Baldwin “relinquished to the Treasury one fifth of his own fortune … held in the form of War Loan stock”. That was his gift to the nation to help with the war debt.
They don’t make ’em like that any more.
Espouse the accumulation of wealth….? Or espouse the generation of wealth? Rather different, I’d say…
He wants an incompetent government? What an odd endorsement of anarchism.