‘He doesn’t know what it’s like’: Low earners on the £730,000,000 man in Downing Street

Can the multi-millionaire understand people’s plight to help them? Some aren’t sure about that (Picture: Reuters/Getty)

On the day it was clear he’d become prime minister, searches on Google for a single question shot up astronomically: ‘How rich is Rishi Sunak?’

Mr Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, have a net worth of £730,000,000, according to The Sunday Times Rich List, an annual catalogue of wealth. 

Their fortune, more than double that of King Charles II, is enough to buy more than 300,000,000 free school meals, one Labour MP calculated.

Mr Sunak’s father-in-law founded Infosys, the outsourcing giant that enjoys millions of pounds worth of contracts with the British government, according to an analysis by public spending tracker Tussell.

But does this all make Mr Sunak too out of touch to guide the nation through a cost-of-living crisis, where basic essentials now carry eye-watering price tags?

That is the question asked by both people living on low incomes and reliant on social welfare as well as anti-poverty campaigners.

Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata Murthy have a net worth double that of the king (Picture: PA)

The couple, among the wealthiest in Britain, have begun moving into No10 (Picture: Steve Back)

Harrison, a teacher in his 20s living in the West Midlands, says his weekly grocery shop has become a third more expensive this year.

‘I almost never buy fresh food: pasta, tinned, or frozen food make up over 90% of what I will eat on a day-to-day basis,’ he tells Metro.co.uk.

The price of budget food in supermarkets has risen by 17% in the year to September, according to the Office for National Statistics.

The month before, nearly three-quarters of Brits said they just about pay for basics like food and housing, startling figures from data company Dynata found.

This makes Britain the second-most struggling country in Europe.

Among those struggling is Harrison. His monthly electric bill has more than doubled (from £55 to £132) — and the extra cash has to come from somewhere.

Sticker shock is common for Brits these days as inflation drives up grocery costs (Picture: EPA)

‘I’ve never been a particularly big spender but since Christmas, I’ve only bought one t-shirt and a pair of jeans; there just isn’t the money for anything else,’ he says.

Most of Harrison’s money goes on petrol to drive to work each day, so he rarely socialises and hasn’t seen his family much as they live too far away.

Mr Sunak will never ‘relate’ to the sacrifices Harrison is having to make and will have to continue making for months to survive, he feels.

David Cameron’s austerity policies scarred low-income people like him and his family, and he expects Mr Sunak’s policies to do the same.

‘When he ran for leader in the summer he had to borrow a car from someone because he is only chauffeur-driven,’ Harrison says.

‘He’s going to look at the UK’s finances as just numbers on a spreadsheet but they aren’t. People’s lives will be affected by the cuts he makes and things he decides to fund or not to fund.

‘I don’t understand how someone who went to the poshest private school in the country, and who is almost a billionaire can honestly say they understand the importance of things like the price of pasta going up, or if he even knows that the standing charge for electricity has gone up alongside tariffs.

Rishi Sunak rapidly became prime minister after Liz Truss resigned (Picture: Reuters)

‘This is like a game to him, if he doesn’t succeed he can jet off to his second home in America but ordinary people will be stuck with his decisions.’

The eldest son of immigrants of Indian heritage who moved to Southampton, Mr Sunak’s dad was a family doctor and his mother owned a pharmacy.

He was educated at some of the country’s most elite and expensive schools, including Winchester College, which his parents reportedly saved up for.

When he was 21, his parents would help him buy his first London apartment before working as an analyst for investment bank Goldman Sachs for four years.

Mr Sunak and his wife now own homes in London; his parliamentary constituency in Yorkshire; and in Santa Monica, California.

The home in Kensington, west London, is a five-bed, four-bathroom mews mansion worth £6,600,000. There’s also his Old Brompton Road home for his vacationing family to stay in.

Mr Sunak’s Yorkshire property, £1,500,000, has an ornamental lake. He’s applied to add a stone building that houses a gym, showers and 12-metre pool.

Anti-poverty campaigners are calling on Rishi Sunak to step up as the cost-of-living crisis closes in on people like a vice (Picture: Simon Walker/ No10 Downing Street)

‘When those big decisions come across his desk he won’t side with ordinary working people,’ Harrison says, ‘because he doesn’t know what it’s like to be an ordinary person.

‘He doesn’t really need to care at the moment with a majority of about 70, and right now he just wants to make it to 51 days in office and without a financial collapse like Liz Truss.’

Simon Frances, the coordinator of End Fuel Poverty Coalition, says the Richmond MP doesn’t need to look that far to see how people are suffering.

One-quarter of residents in his constituency can’t afford to heat their homes, according to the coalition.

‘He won’t have been able to escape the clamour from his own constituents, as well as from charities that work with the most vulnerable, for more action,’ Mr Frances says.

Ismail Kaji, 44, is a parliamentary and government officer for the learning disability charity Mencap who has an intellectual learning disability.

A father-of-three living in a London suburb, Mr Kaji also lives with a physical disability that means he struggles to move and needs cabs to travel to work.

Ismail Kaji isn’t just choosing between food and fuel, but between basics and the equipment he needs to get by as a disabled person (Picture: Supplied)

As much as he receives Personal Independence Payments (PIP), this doesn’t do much to dull the hundreds more pounds he spends per month to get by compared to non-disabled people.

Every day, Mr Kaji anxiously checks his bank balance but the screen always shows the same thing — he’s in his overdraft. Again.

This straddles him with about £30 in extra costs every month as he already just about has enough to buy not only household basics but disability equipment too.

‘I suffer from arthritis and joint problems, so in the cold I definitely need heating but I’ve been too scared to turn it on. Sometimes I use electric heaters but I still feel scared,’ he says.

‘Sometimes with health stuff, you need what you need for your help. If I don’t get any heat, my joints are stiff and sore even though my medication numbs the pain.

‘I don’t want to end up not being able to move.’

Rishi Sunak kept on Jeremy Hunt, who intends to end the energy price cap early, on as chancellor (Picture: AP)

With Ms Truss’ second pick for chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, remaining in the post, it seems likely the government’s energy price freeze will still thaw next April.

The scheme to stop the worst of the energy price hikes will then be replaced by an undefined programme that will only offer ‘targeted’ support.

‘A lot of people like myself are worrying about what’s gonna happen at the end of March,’ Mr Kaji says, ‘because if the support isn’t there, it’s going to be very, very expensive.’

‘I want to see how much wealth Sunak has in his heart for poor people,’ he adds.

Another thing on Mr Kaji’s list of worries is whether his benefits, that pay for the extra care and mobility needs he has, will be raised.

Having to re-apply for the payment is already humiliating enough, he says, given that he has to show ‘evidence’ to officials that he’s disabled.

In September, the Truss administration rejected urgent calls from MPs to uprate rather than decrease social security.

Mr Sunak must increase benefits to keep up with cost-of-living jumps, says Michael Clarke, head of information programmes for poverty charity Turn2us.

Energy prices, among other rises, are choking households’ budgets (Picture: Getty Images)

‘Benefits are not a lifestyle choice,’ he says, adding: ‘The current benefits system is not robust, and people are being denied dignity because of it.’

‘Those of us on the lowest incomes have borne the brunt of the disruption in government in recent months. It is time to put them first.’

During his first leadership bid, Mr Sunak wore suits costing £3,500, threw on £490 Prada loafers to construction sites and seemingly had no idea how to pay for coke from a petrol station with a contactless bank card.

In August this year, Mr Sunak stressed he wasn’t ‘born like this’. 

‘I think in our country, we judge people not by their bank account; we judge them by their character and their actions,’ he said.

But earlier this year, footage emerged of a 20-year-old Mr Sunak telling documentary filmmakers: ‘I have friends who are aristocrats. I have friends who are upper-class.

‘I have friends who are, you know, working-class, but — well, not working-class.’

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‘I want to see how much wealth Rishi Sunak has in his heart for poor people.’