SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – The United Kingdom has chosen its new Prime Minister in former Treasury Chief Rishi Sunak.
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Sunak will be the first prime minister of color as his conservative party looks to him to fix the country's economic woes.
The former banker is also one of the richest men in England. He and his wife are estimated to be worth about $830 million dollars, a substantial amount more than British Royals.
"What they need right now in the UK is someone who's going to come in, work hard, do the job, sort out the UK’s finances and get this country back on track," said Enda Brady, a media consultant based in London, to KCBS Radio's Patti Reising and Bret Burkhart on Monday.
The last five or six years have been pretty chaotic for the country's political scene, said Brady.
"Strange people getting into power," he said. "I mean, Liz Truss has been a disaster these past six weeks."
Truss was the Prime Minister right before Sunak and only served an incredibly short stint before resigning.
Although Sunak's background is a bit unusual, as long as he gets the work done, the British people likely won’t care, according to Brady.
Prior to this, Sunak was in charge of job retention programs in the country during the pandemic and financial relief to businesses.
"He was seen as being quite a good finance minister," said Brady. But that doesn't mean people really know what to expect from him in this new role.
Strangest of all, Sunak hasn’t done any interviews about his plans since he got the appointment.
"It's been the most bizarre conservative leadership election," he said. "No interviews, no TV, no radio, no newspapers."
Some have stated that the reason for that is he already did a lot of press when he campaigned against Truss in the summer.
But it is likely that one of his first actions will be to undo some of the messy economic policies that Truss had launched.
"Britain has huge debts to pay back," said Brady. "We haven't even skimmed the surface of COVID-19 payment."
This means taxes might increase next year, which could lead to some scrutiny of Sunak’s finances after all.
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