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Rishi Sunak's old video on 'no working-class friends' resurfaces, goes viral
The old BBC video of Rishi Sunak doing the rounds on social media is from 2001. "I have friends who are aristocrats, I have friends who are upper-class, I have friends who are, you know, working-class. Well, not working class," he said.
An old video of 21-year-old Rishi Sunak saying he does not have working-class friends has resurfaced and gone viral as the race for the UK prime minister post heats up with Rishi Sunak being one of the frontrunners. "I have friends who are aristocrats, I have friends who are upper-class, I have friends who are, you know, working-class. Well, not working class," Rishi Sunak said in the BBC documentary 'Middle Classes- Their Rise & Sprawl'.
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"I mix and match and then I go to see kids from an inner-city state school and tell them to apply to Oxford and talk to them about people like me. And then I shock them at the end of chatting to them for half an hour and tell them I was at Winchester and one of my best friends is from Eton or whatever. And then they're like: 'Oh OK'," Rishi Sunak said in the documentary.
"I am very lucky to have been at these places, it does put me in an elite in society. I always consider myself professional middle class, I don't think being Asian is a defining feature," Rishi said on getting to study a Winchester College and then at Oxford.
On July 8, Rishi Shunak, the former chancellor, launched his campaign to be elected the new Conservative Party leader and Prime minister. Iraqi-origin Nadhim Zahawi who is the present UK Chancellor, and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps also declared their candidacies on Saturday. Former health minister Sajid Javid, former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt have also joined the fray.
The small clip was posted by one Kathryn Franklin who told WalesOnline that she saw the video on local BBC Politics show in March. "I then saw Rishi Sunak's slick campaign video in support of his bid to become PM and it seemed to contradict what he'd said in that video clip back in 2001. So I posted the clip again...," she said asserting that she does not belong to any political party;.
The video drew reactions as people are wondering how out of touch he is while some social media users pointed out that Boris Johnson is also not a friend of the working class.
In his campaign launch video, Sunak talked about his humble Indian origin and how his grandparents moved to the UK with a hope for a better life. "My family gave me opportunities they could only dream of. But it was Britain, our country, that gave them and millions like them the chance of a better future," he said.
Rishi Sunak, the 42-year-old Tory leader is the son-in-law of Infosys founder Narayan Murthy. His political career began in 2015 before which he was a hedge fund manager and worked as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. Rishi married Narayan Murthy's daughter Akshata Murty in 2009.
