Rishi Sunak's high social class cause for criticism

The New York Times believes the new British prime minister to be "deeply out of touch with the country he will soon run", causing him to be unfit to save the UK economy from crashing.

An op-ed by the American publication points to a recent episode at a gas station, where Rishi Sunak was photographed filling up a modest car at a supermarket gas station, which the author believes was meant to be reminding people of his role as former finance minister in cutting the price of fuel.

Yet it yielded the opposite effect, as the prime minister seemed to have trouble making a contactless payment, apparently indicating that he rarely pays by himself.

Supporters of Sunak point to the success of the furlough policy in March 2020, in which the government covered up to 80 per cent of employees’ wages during the pandemic. Yet his critics note that the exclusion of three million self-employed workers and the soon-following end of this policy undercut his generosity.

The New York further writes that Sunak has been widely criticized for not doing enough to protect low-income families and the unemployed. Some estimates predict that in the absence of greater support, 1.3 million Britons could slip into poverty amidst an inflation rate of over 10 per cent, with a British media outlet having called his weak support efforts "insufficient, inefficient and unconservative".