The modern era (defined in this piece as 1900-) has seen 26 different prime ministers, with 31 different ministries (with Stanley Baldwin, Ramsay MacDonald, Winston Churchill, and Harold Wilson returning to office – Baldwin doing it three times). Despite such a vast amount of PMs, each one has managed – memorably or not, positively or notoriously – to carve out some kind of legacy for themselves. With that, here is an interesting fact about every UK PM since 1900.
#1. The Marquess of Salisbury
Elected PM on three occasions, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, better known as the Marquess of Salisbury (although sometimes referred to as Lord Salisbury) may have more names than P. Diddy but that did not stop him from seeing political success, with his third tenure in power rolling past the year 1900.
Stepping down in 1902, not only was he the final PM of the Victorian Era, sitting as Queen Victoria died the previous year, but he was also the last prime minister able to hold the role whilst sitting in the House of Lords. In the years following, the idea of being able to be prime minister whilst sitting in Parliament’s unelected and unaccountable chamber has become unthinkable, as proved by the Sir Alec Douglas-Home situation in 1963 (more on that later).
#2. Arthur Balfour
The nephew of Salisbury, Balfour’s time as Conservative leader was plagued with issues, from the backlash of British imperialist “methods of barbarism” (as Leader of the Opposition Henry Campbell-Bannerman put it) in the Boer War to the Conservative split over tariff reform.
In 1905, Balfour’s government collapsed, with Bannerman invited to call a government; he subsequently called a general election.
In the Liberal landslide election in 1906, the Conservatives had their propellors clipped and would nose-dive towards oblivion. The Conservatives had their worst electoral performance in history, resulting in just 156 seats, dropping 246 seats whilst the newly socially-interventionist ‘New Liberals’ won nearly 400 seats, working closely with the Labour Party in a mutually beneficial agreement.
At the election, Balfour, who had been prime minister the month earlier, lost his seat with his seat in Manchester East seeing a 22.4% swing to the Liberals. It was effectively a whitewash of the whole Cabinet, with only three members re-elected. Balfour’s 1906 performance is still the only instance of a former prime minister losing a seat in his constituency.
#3. Henry Campbell-Bannerman
The Liberal PM, elected in late 1905 was the first to be recognised as – that is to say, given the official title of – the prime minister, given to him five days after taking office. The term First Lord of the Treasury with the now-associated term initially used as an insult.
His appointment not only initiated the first use of the term now in common usage but also made him the oldest person in the 20th century to be PM for the first time, something perhaps reflected in the fact that Bannerman is the only PM to die in Number 10 Downing Street.
#4. H.H. Asquith
Asquith is one of the less remembered PMs, which is odd considering his role as the sitting PM during Britain’s entry into World War One, remarking Britain was “fighting in defence of principles the maintenance of which is vital to the civilisation of the world.”
The last Liberal PM with a majority and later the final Liberal Leader of the Opposition, Asquith’s family legacy lives on to this day. Although there is some speculation of a connection to Carrie Johnson (maiden name Symonds), the wife of Boris Johnson, this is a theory peddled by the likes of The Daily Mail and is unconfirmed. What is definitely true however is the fame of Asquith’s great-granddaughter Helena Bonham Carter.
#5. David Lloyd George
The WW1 war hero David Lloyd George may have been born in Manchester but, by all accounts, he was an out-and-out Welshman, brought up and educated in Wales with Welsh as his first language. Biographer and ex-Labour Cabinet minister Roy Hattersley described him in David Lloyd George: The Great Outsider as “certainly the most famous and perhaps the greatest Welshman of all time…[his] state of mind was Welsh. Blood and upbringing shaped his character, not the accident of birth which made him officially English.”
As such, George was a strong Welsh nationalist and supported various Welsh causes including devolution in Wales.
Despite other Welshmen serving in the role as Leader of the Opposition, most famously Neil Kinnock, George remains the only Welshman to be prime minister, and – with the implementation of devolution – increasingly likely to be the last one.
#6. Bonar Law
Serving less than a year in office due to throat cancer, Law remains another forgettable PM.
He was the first PM to be born outside of the United Kingdom. Law was actually born in New Brunswick, Canada and remained the only PM born outside the UK until 2019.
Locations in his birthplace have been named after him such as the Bonar Law Memorial High School in Rexton (called Kingston at the time of Law’s birth), New Brunswick.
#7. Stanley Baldwin
Returning to the office on three occasions, the only person to do so in the 20th century, Stanley Baldwin took over from Law after his resignation over ill health although his most remember tenure was his third stint at the premiership. This was as his run the third time around saw various foreign crises such as the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the expansion of German national socialism through the remilitarisation of the Rhineland and the 1936 Nazi Olympics in Berlin.
As well as these, Baldwin had domestic issues to deal with. Coming to office under George V, who eventually died (effectively from euthanasia) in 1936. After this, he was succeeded by the controversial Edward VIII who was forced to abdicate after a moral backlash after his plan to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, lasting less than a year as the monarch from January-December 1936 – making Baldwin the only PM under Edward, something even odder considering that Queen Elizabeth saw 15 different PMs during her reign.
Despite Edward VIII’s controversy during his reign of possibly remarrying an American divorcee, he is now seen as more derided for his association with Nazism, with Christopher Hitchens describing him as a “Hitler-sympathising…firm admirer of the Third Reich.” George VI eventually took over and reigned longer after Baldwin took office.
Baldwin remains the only modern PM to reign through the entirety of a monarch’s reign whilst also being the only one to serve three different monarchs, which he managed to do in the space of fewer than two years.
#8. Ramsay MacDonald
Ramsay MacDonald became the first Labour Prime Minister in 1924. The 1923 election saw a Conservative win, gaining 38% of the vote in an unusually close result but failed a majority whilst Labour, the party with the second most seats, were able to take power, propped up by third parties such as a supply and demand deal with the Liberals.
As a potential risk of being in a minority government, Labour fell to a decisive no-confidence vote later that year which collapsed the government, which later reformed in 1929 after the result of another hung Parliament, ruling until 1935.
During this stint, MacDonald appointed the very first woman to the Cabinet when Margaret Bondfield was appointed the Minister of Labour, a position she held from 1929-1931, appointed just 11 years after women gained the ‘right to vote’ (exclusively for those over 30) and a year since the mass enfranchisement of women in 1928. Bondfield apparently rejected a Cabinet position during the earlier government of 1924. She called the historical appointment “part of the great revolution in the position of women.”
#9. Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain is regularly positioned at the top of lists of the worst British PMs of all time, ranked 0/5 by the historian Francis Beckett whilst he came second to last in a BBC survey on the worst prime minister, only beating Anthony Eden. The main reason for this – and the only reason he is really remembered as a whole – is his inability to stand up to Hitler, with his attempted appeasement policy towards Nazi Germany resulting in the culmination of the First World War.
The son of the highly influential Liberal-turned-Unionist Joseph Chamberlain, seen as one of the most important figures to never be prime minister (described by Churchill as having “made the political weather”) and half-brother of ex-Cabinet minister Austen Chamberlain (who later went on to become the Conservative leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner), it might seem surprising that Neville joined Parliament as late as 1918. Winning the seat for Birmingham Ladywood, author Dermot Engelfield notes in Facts About the British Prime Ministers: A Compilation of Biographical and Historical Information that Chamberlain is the oldest PM to be first elected to Parliament, doing so aged 49; he became PM at 68.
If Keir Starmer wins the next election, however, he will become the oldest, with the 60-year-old first elected to Parliament in 2015, aged 52.
#10. Winston Churchill
Churchill is a man who needs no introduction. For those of you who do need an introduction, he was a bulldog who said “Oh, yes!” and sold people car and home insurance, at least I think that’s the right Wikipedia page.
I’ve written a lot about Churchill recently, namely his skills as a passionate and patriotic orator. It is apt then that the peace symbol-gesturing pop culture icon was involved in the invention of one of the most widely used initialisms in the world.
The Oxford English Dictionary traces the first use of the phrase to a 1917 letter written by the retired ex-First Lord of the Sea Lord Fisher to Winston Churchill on September 9th. In the letter, he penned: “I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the tapis — O.M.G. (Oh! My God!) — Shower it on the Admiralty!!”
The explanation of the initials OMG shows how the term was not then in current usage, with this the first known instance of the phrase, evidenced here in its most preliminary form.
#11. Clement Attlee
Up there with Churchill in the prime slot for Britain’s greatest PM, the end of his premiership is an interesting albeit unfair bit of trivia.
Winning the 1945 general election in a landslide win – in which the Conservatives won less than 40% of the votes despite winning the war – Attlee’s promises of post-war reform led to a huge swell of Labour support. Attlee’s government went on to implement a number of popular socialist policies such as the establishment of the National Health Service and the nationalisation of industries such as coal, iron, and the railways.
After just being able to clasp onto a majority in the 1950 election, another was called the next year in the hope of increasing this majority.
However, despite Labour scoring the highest-ever vote tally (not surpassed until the 1990s) and the highest percentage of any party in post-war Britain at nearly 49%, the Conservatives won despite having nearly a quarter of a million fewer votes. This was due to the country’s first-past-the-post system which helped the Tories gain more seats with many seats uncontested by Liberals allowing an easier route to a Conservative victory. Despite the most impressive post-war showing for any party to this day, Labour still lost.
#12. Anthony Eden
Although a big wartime presence, Anthony Eden is regarded as perhaps Britain’s worst PM due to the Suez Crisis.
A skilled dresser may be Eden’s biggest legacy, wearing a black Homburg hat with a silk brim in a look that quickly became a trademark of Eden’s, even referenced in letters by a young John F. Kennedy. The hat is today probably most associated with on-screen characters from mid-20th century television programmes such as Albert Steptoe in Steptoe and Son and Sergeant Arthur Wilson in Dad’s Army, with the hat also worn by the likes of Tony Hancock and – strangely enough – President Eisenhower at his presidential inauguration.
Along with what Time described as “pin-stripe trousers, modish short jacket, and swank black felt hat,” he became nicknamed as one of the “glamour boys”; he has been described by Rab Butler as “half mad baronet, half beautiful woman.”
Eden is thought to have taken great care of his looks – thought to have even varnished his fingernails, often described as the only PM to do so – it worked with Lewis Broad writing how upon a trip to New York in the ‘30s, he was “deluged with fan mail from teenage college girls to elderly matrons.”
#13. Harold Macmillan
PM from 1957-1963, Macmillan served during a time of economic resurgence in Great Britain, capitalising on Keynesian and mixed economic models leading to low unemployment whilst also presiding over one of the most heated periods of the Cold War.
Macmillan was the final PM to bear any facial hair, possessing a moustache. Ever since this, it has become arguably politically unacceptable for major politicians to wear facial hair. Unelectability may lie in the fact it makes the wearer look lazy, uncleanly, or even pro-communist, with no PM rocking a full beard since Salisbury.
This dying out of facial fuzz is odd considering that from 1922-1957, a moustached PM always succeeded a clean-shaved one, and vice versa.
The facial hair seems to be dying out in politics – Jeremy Corbyn a recent exception – with Macmillan putting in the last shift for hirsute politics.
#14. Alec Douglas-Home
Had Macmillan resigned a year earlier, the idea of the 14th Earl of Home, sitting in the House of Lords, serving as PM would be out of the question. To be applicable for this role, Home has Tony Benn to thank.
In 1963, future Labour Cabinet minister Tony Benn successfully lobbied to revoke his hereditary peerage, instigating the Peerage Act 1963 which let members disclaim their peerages within a year. During this time, Macmillan resigned, allowing Home a “constitutional possibility” (as D.R. Thorpe wrote) to become prime minister.
Although winning the leadership of the Conservative Party, Sir Alec had not been elected to represent a constituency so quickly needed to win a seat. ADH was then pencilled in as a candidate in a by-election in Scotland’s safest Tory seat in Kinross and Western Perthshire. He won decisively with a majority of over 9,000 votes – 14,000 out of over 24,000 – equating to 57% of the vote, with Douglas-Home uniquely serving as prime minister for 20 days when not yet elected. (As an aside, an interesting note from the 1963 by-election is that ADH ran against Independent candidate Willie Rushton, the co-founder of Private Eye and I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue panellist; he won 45 seats.)
His win in 1963 was controversial, with the next Conservative leadership election instituting a secret ballot by the party in the aftermath. Home proved to be controversial with up-and-coming Tories such as Enoch Powell and Iain Macleod refusing to serve in his Cabinet whilst Leader of the Opposition, Labour’s Harold Wilson, successfully framed Home as an aristocrat out of touch with the British public prior to the 1964 general election, which ADH lost.
#15. Harold Wilson
Ex-civil servant Harold Wilson was first elected to Parliament in 1945, the Labour landslide, and quickly found himself amidst the Labour in-crowd.
At the young age of 31, Wilson was appointed President of the Board of Trade. This appointment made Wilson the youngest Cabinet member of the 20th century. Becoming Labour leader upon the death of Hugh Gaitskell in 1963 and prime minister the following year, Wilson became the first PM of the 20th century to take office under the age of 50.
On the opposite side of the age spectrum, Wilson’s wife Mary became the first spouse of a PM to become a centenarian, living to 102, born in 1916 and dying in 2018. For reference, Mary lived through both the Russian Revolution and the poisoning of the Skripals at the hands of the Russian nerve agent Novichok.
As well as the youngest, he was the most numerous electoral winner, having won four (1964, 1966, January 1974, October 1974) – the most of any prime minister of the 20th century.
#16. Edward Heath
The careers of politicians after toppling from “the greasy pole” (what ex-PM Disraeli called the prime ministership) serve as interesting reading with often differing outcomes for different leaders. Some may move into the House of Lords such as Thatcher, some may move away to diplomatic work such as Blair, and Harold Wilson even made a failed attempt to break into show business – but one of the more surprising is Edward Heath.
Winning power in 1970, Heath’s short stint in power was plagued by both domestic and international social issues such as the Troubles in Ireland, Britain’s role in the EEC aka the Common Market, and the miners’ strike that led to the infamous ‘Three-Day Week’.
Losing power in 1974 to Wilson, despite tallying more votes, Heath lost the subsequent leadership election but remained a backbencher for nearly three decades, cutting a distinctive gate in the Commons. “Ted” became the Father of the House, stepping down in 2001 when in his 80s.
Having lost power in 1974, his death in 2005 – 31 years later – is the longest lifetime after leaving office.
#17. James Callaghan
For such an unremarkable figure, James Callaghan does have some rather intriguing claims to fame.
With Wilson declining in health and feeling burnout from politics, he resigned in 1976, followed by arguably the most star-studded leadership election in British history. In this, James Callaghan beat off competition from five powerhouses of the Labour Party: Michael Foot, Denis Healey, Anthony Crosland, Tony Benn, and Roy Jenkins – a result that may be deemed surprising considering that “Sunny Jim” was probably the least charismatic of that eclectic class.
The appointment made him the only person in history to have held all four Great Offices of State (PM, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary). Callaghan served as Chancellor from Wilson’s win in 1964 until crashing the pound in 1967, and transitioned afterwards to the role of Home Secretary. As Foreign Secretary, he was given the job of negotiations for Britain’s terms in the EEC and jumped to be elected PM after Wilson’s departure.
Callaghan memorably faced the Winter of Discontent in which widespread strike action halted the nation. The book Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s – named after the infamous Sun headline – paints a grim picture of events, recalling: “Two million workers were threatened with being laid off if the strikes continued, pigs were reported to be resorting to cannibalism as food supplies to farms ran low, supermarkets began rationing essentials such as butter and sugar, and newspapers shrank in size as supplies of newsprint dwindled. ‘The day when Brussels sprouts became a luxury,’ ran a headline in The Guardian.”
Faced with a national crisis and without a majority, often relying on Liberal help through a demand and supply deal, Callaghan lost a no-confidence vote in 1979 and lost the following general election to Margaret Thatcher, placing Labour out of power for nearly two decades.
Losing power in 1979 in his mid-late 60s, his age at resignation has not been beaten since. Callaghan lived until 2005, dying one day short of his 94th birthday making him the longest-lived PM of all time. His death occurred less than two weeks after the death of his wife of 66 years Audrey. In comparison, the USA’s longest-lived president is Jimmy Carter, still alive as of writing at the age of 98.
#18. Margaret Thatcher
Thatcher’s premiership is arguably the singular most divisive in British history. An imperial prime minister who commanded a strong majority crushed the unions, and defended the Falklands, Thatcher gained many opponents on the way.
When the longest-serving PM of the 20th century passed away in 2013, Britain engaged in an extensive public tribute, with a large state funeral with military honours. Her death was not universally mourned, however, with George Galloway referring to the commemoration as the “canonisation of [a] wicked woman.”
A Facebook campaign successfully rallied for sales of the Wizard of Oz song “Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead” in the aftermath. Considering the popular hate directed towards the “Iron Lady”, it achieved its goal and charted at number two although the BBC refused to play the track on their chart rundown.
She also once spanked Christopher Hitchens, which is certainly something!
#19. John Major
The ever-unpopular John Major took over the reins from Thatcher and served from 1990-1997. The Conservatives were trounced in 1997 with Labour (‘New Labour’) gaining over 400 seats – the only party to do in the 20th century.
The win was inevitable with Major a far less engaging political character than Blair whilst suffering from his own backfiring ‘Back to Basics’ campaign. Losing every opinion poll since Blair’s leadership, Major became the youngest sitting modern PM to lose an election, having recently passed his 54th birthday. Had he lost in 1992 – as many polls had reflected – he would have therefore set the record even lower.
If Rishi Sunak loses the next election, which John Major be able to see as the oldest living ex-prime minister, he would break this record.
#20. Tony Blair
In May 2000, Cherie Blair gave birth to Leo, the first child born to a sitting PM in over 150 years. Leo was Tony Blair’s fourth child albeit the first one born whilst he was in office and the first one for whom he was present throughout.
Despite the last child of a PM being born in 1849 to Lord John Russell, Blair has been followed in the decades since by both David Cameron and Boris Johnson – the latter producing two children whilst prime minister.
Unfortunately, the Blair’s fifth child was not to be after a miscarriage of their unplanned child, which The Guardian recorded: “[took] Westminster and the country as a whole by complete surprise.” Unfortunately, this is not the only such occurrence of this, as Carrie Johnson suffered a miscarriage prior to the birth of their second child Romy whilst the same year as Blair’s miscarriage in 2002, Gordon Brown’s daughter Jennifer was born premature and died shortly after a brain haemorrhage.
#21. Gordon Brown
Emerging as the only candidate for Labour leadership after Blair’s resignation, Brown’s appointment made him the only PM to have completed a PhD.
Brown completed his PhD in history in 1982, writing a thesis titled Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland, 1918-1929: The Politics of Five Elections. Brown graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1972, with an undergraduate MA degree with First-Class Honours.
Having been elected Rector in 1972, Brown has stayed close to the education sector since. As well as a champion of educational funding when Chancellor and PM, he embarked on a stint as a lecturer and tutor for the Open University, which he has labelled a “national treasure.” He has gone on to hold onto positions such as a UN Special Envoy on Global Education and chaired the unpaid position of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity.
#22. David Cameron
Like the Labour Party in the ‘90s, the Conservative Party needed to undergo changes in the ‘00s. The party needed to adapt from its perception of the ‘nasty’ party to the ‘compassionate’ party which was instituted under David Cameron.
An interesting fact about Cameron is that in 2013, David Cameron lost the first foreign policy vote in over 200 years; the last occasion was in 1782 amid the American Revolutionary War. This vote was over Syrian intervention and while Cameron did not necessarily have to ask Parliament, he did so due to convention. The end vote was 272-285, a majority of 13 opposing the motion.
Cameron was also the first and only PM to date to host a pre-legislative referendum, of which he held two. Although Harold Wilson held a 1975 referendum on EC membership, this first-of-its-kind idea was post-legislative with Britain having entered in 1973 when the Conservative government did not offer the public a say in the matter. Cameron held two, memorably losing his desired effect of remaining in the EU in 2016 as well as a 2011 vote on implementing an alternative vote (AV) political system to replace first-past-the-post, which failed with apathetic turnout figures.
#23. Theresa May
Upon being appointed PM in 2016, the ex-Home Secretary Theresa May made history as the first female holder of two Great Offices of State.
May’s tenure is largely remembered for the dominant matter of Brexit although she was also in power during a number of crises such as terrorist attacks (Westminster, Manchester Stadium, and London Bridge), the Grenfell Tower fire, and a marked increase in knife crime.
Having to juggle a party divided over the EU withdrawal, May found herself disadvantaged further by lacking a majority after the snap election in 2017.
May faced an unprecedented number of resignations during her short stint with over half of these due to Brexit-related matters.
It may come as no surprise then that Brexit’s chances were stifled. Not only was her government the first found to be in contempt of Parliament over ministers’ refusal to publish the legal advice they have received on Brexit. Moreover, in January 2019, the rejection of her Brexit deal saw the biggest House of Commons defeat of any sitting government ever. Although no government in the post-war era had even lost by 100 votes, May’s first Brexit deal agreement lost 202-432, a majority vote of 230. The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg described it as being “a higher figure than the wildest of numbers that were gossiped about before the vote.”
#24. Boris Johnson
A unique PM, Johnson instigated a number of records and accolades in British history.
Boris became PM in 2019, decisively winning the Tory leadership election. Born in the USA, he became the first prime minister to be born outside of a UK-owned territory although he was raised in England, famously joining the Bullingdon Club. Unlike the USA, PMs do not need to be born in the UK to serve as their head of government.
Johnson became the first PM in nearly 200 years to marry whilst in office, done in secret in 2021. This was the first marriage in office since Lord Liverpool in 1822.
Boris, during his stint in power, also became the first PM to break the law when he was issued a fixed penalty notice in 2022 over lockdown parties, often referred to now as ‘Partygate’. Fines were gifted to Boris, his wife, and Chancellor Rishi Sunak – the latter of whom got another fixed penalty notice in 2023 for being seen without a seat belt whilst filming a promotional video.
His tenure ended in July when a mass wave of resignations took place. In the space of about 48 hours, 62 MPs resigned from the government, triggered by the Johnson’s promotion of the known sexual deviant Chris Pincher but also likely caused by a build-up of hostility towards sleaze allegations such as ‘Partygate’ and the Owen Paterson lobbying case. Boris held on as long as possible until his position was officially untenable although giving one final flourish, sacking longtime ally Michael Gove, firing him at 20:58 after he gave Johnson an ultimatum to resign by 21:00. This was the biggest set of resignations in history.
#25. Liz Truss
Liz Truss will forever be synonymous with two things: Queen Elizabeth II’s serving PM at the time of her death and crashing the economy.
Trying to imitate the looks of Margaret Thatcher in her dress, the Les Echoes paper described her as the “Iron Weathercock,” in part referencing her political icon. Her attempts at the resemblance to Thatcher and following of Thatcherite policies (as well as her denunciation of the “anti-growth coalition” of unions, left-wing parties, and protestors at the Conservative Party Conference) were ironic considering her radical past where she seemed more Michael Foot than Maggie Thatcher.
Truss was a protestor in her younger years, chanting and singing anti-Thatcher rhetoric. She has since praised Thatcher as a “brilliant leader” with whose image she managed to win over the Tory Party membership.
President of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats, in the wake of her win, various past statements came back into the public eye. In the same era, Queen Elizabeth II passed away with Truss at the helm, clips resurfaced of the 1994 Lib Dem Conference when Truss stated: “We Liberal Democrats believe in opportunity for all. We believe in fairness and commonsense…we do not believe people are born to rule,” whilst calling the concept of the monarchy “disgraceful.” The motion of abolition was rejected whilst Truss’s anti-monarchy sentiment was said to have angered Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown due to Truss’s “hijacking of the conference.”
Born into a left-wing family, she also participated in marches with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) whilst campaigning on the legalisation of cannabis.
Since coming into the public eye, she has generally played down this radical side of her past – ironically something also done by Opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer – telling The Sun: “I probably didn’t know what I was saying. I was seven at the time.”
#26. Rishi Sunak
In 2022, Britain was given its first black prime minister when Rishi Sunak was chosen. Yet the win was far from Obama’s in 2008; Sunak was elected by only about 100 people, was chosen during a time many felt a general election should be held, and had lost a previous leadership election shortly beforehand with Keir Starmer remarking Sunak “got trounced by the former prime minister, who herself got beaten by a lettuce,” referencing the famous Daily Star campaign predicting correctly Truss would resign before a chosen lettuce wilted.
It is not an unknown fact but nonetheless an interesting one of Rishi Sunak’s wealth.
Virtually unknown until appointed Chancellor by Boris Johnson, the role was perhaps given to him on the basis of being one of the wealthiest people in the country.
Sunak met his future wife Akshata Murty whilst at Stanford University, with the couple marrying in 2009. Murty owns just under a 1% stake in her father, Indian billionaire businessman N.R. Narayana Murthy’s Infosys company.
With this, the couple is thought to have a combined wealth of £730 million. $830 million in US dollars, many people – especially foreigners – were surprised to learn that the newly-crowned PM was richer than King Charles III, with The Mirror referring to it as an “extraordinary fortune,” which makes him them the 222nd richest people in Britain. The King is estimated to have about £370 million.
Sunak is the richest ever PM, something netting him criticism especially as he navigates the UK through an economic crisis.
Prior to Sunak, the richest was the Earl of Derby, Edward Smith-Stanley. Elected in 1852, Guinness World Records puts his wealth at £440 million in today’s money. He owned 57,000 acres of land in Lancashire, born into one of the country’s wealthiest families.
Their wealth has seen controversies and scandals for the couple, however. One of the biggest was Murty’s non-dom status which meant that as she was registered in India, she had to pay a minimal amount of imposed tax, with CNBC stating that the family managed to legally dodge £20 million. Moreover, Sunak faced criticisms for the family’s continued operation in Russia after their invasion of Ukraine, deemed inappropriate for a member of the Ukraine-supporting British Cabinet. Sunak has more recently been attacked for taking unnecessary private jet trips between locations that could be reached in a more eco-friendly and modest way.