Sunak is now all but certain to be one of the two candidates on the final ballot for Conservative party members, media reports said…reports Asian Lite News
Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak on Tuesday hung on his lead in the race to select the next leader of the Conservative Party – and the Prime Minister, extending his lead in the fourth round to nearly a third of all votes.
Sunak secured 118 votes, three more than in the fourth round, while both his challengers – Penny Mordaunt and Liz Truss remained in double digits, the BBC reported.
It was curtains for Nigerian-origin, former Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch, who came last with 59 votes and drops out.
Sunak is trailed by Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt with 92 votes, 10 more votes since Monday, and Foreign Secretary Liz Truss was third with 86 votes, having gained 15 votes.
The final round will be on Wednesday leaving just two candidates, and then, it is Conservative Party members around the country, who will make the final decision, to be announced on September 5.
Sunak is now all but certain to be one of the two candidates on the final ballot for Conservative party members, media reports said.
He is now on 115 votes and once a candidate gets 120 (just over a third of the total), it is mathematically impossible for two other candidates to get more votes. Sunak is also particularly well placed to pick up many of the 31 Tom Tugendhat votes now up for grab; Sunak, like Tugendhat, presents as a mainstream pragmatist, not an ideological rightwinger, the Guardian reported.
Liz Truss and Penny Mordaunt are now the two strongest candidates in the contest to be the second person on the final ballot. One recent survey suggested both would beat Sunak in the final poll, but Truss more comfortably than Mordaunt, it said.
Almost certainly, Sunak’s chances would be better against Mordaunt; her lack of experience means the risk of her campaign imploding under scrutiny remains high (over the last week her popularity has already fallen significantly), and Truss, unlike Mordaunt, would be guaranteed the support of the Tory right en masse.
Kemi Badenoch looks likely to be eliminated on Tuesday afternoon. It is not inevitable – she has defied expectations already – but she remains 13 votes behind Truss, and may struggle to get much of the Tugendhat vote. If she does fall out, her votes will be for grabs on Wednesday – and would decide whether Sunak faces Truss or Mordaunt, which could in turn determine who gets elected as the next PM, The Guardian reported.
Sunak and Braverman’s fellow Indian-origin Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, chose to sit it out…writes Vikas Dutta
It could be called democracy’s diversity, or even colonialism’s counterblast. The race to succeed UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson by becoming the new leader of the Conservative Party, which espoused the Empire, imperialism and British national identity, has been swamped with contenders from former colonies in Asia and Africa. And at the end of the preliminary rounds, the son of immigrants from British East Africa was on top.
Rishi Sunak, UK’s former Chancellor of the Exchequer, or Finance Minister, whose sudden resignation set in motion the circumstances that forced an intransigent Johnson to finally bow out, has emerged the main contender at the end of two rounds of voting by the 358 Conservative MPs.
Picking up a quarter of the votes in the first round, he became the only one to get over three digits in the second round — and is followed by three women present and former ministers.
The initial race had a ethnically diverse list of candidates — British Pakistani ministers Sajid Javid and Rehman Chishti, Sunak’s Iraqi Kurd-born successor Nadhim Zahawi, Attorney General Suella Braverman, whose family’s roots are in Goa, and Nigerian-origin former minister Kemi Badenoch.
Sunak and Braverman’s fellow Indian-origin Priti Patel, the Home Secretary, chose to sit it out.
Javid and Chishti failed to get enough traction to even figure in the race, Zahawi bowed out after the first round, and Braverman after the second, leaving Sunak and Badenoch to contend against Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, and Tom Tugendhat, the backbench MP, who happens to be half-French.
It’s early days for Sunak, who has emphasised that identity of a person born in the UK but with origins elsewhere matters to him. He has to remain in the reckoning till there are only two contenders left in the race, at which point the decision will be left to the rank-and-file Conservative Party members across the cities, shires, hills and dales across the British Isles.
🔴 Liz Truss, Rishi Sunak, Tom Tugendhat, Kemi Badenoch and Penny Mordaunt will now come under intense scrutiny as they go head-to-head on national television this evening
Suave, efficient, but also controversy-ridden, the former US-based investment banker, hedge fund operator, and three-time MP still has a chance to become the first non-ethnic Briton to become Prime Minister.
This, though, will not be entirely unusual — for such staunch British PMs as Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan happened to be half-American (on their mothers’ side) and Johnson was born in the US, becoming the first non-UK-born Prime Minister since Andrew Bonar Law nearly a century ago (Bonar Law, however, was born in Canada, which was a part of the Empire.)
Born in Southhampton on May 12, 1980, Sunak is the son of (the then British) Kenya-born Yashvir Sunak and his wife, Tanganyika-born Usha, who grandparents were born in the Punjab Province of British India, and migrated to East Africa, and from there to the UK in the 1960s.
“My parents emigrated here, so you’ve got this generation of people who are born here, their parents were not born here, and they’ve come to this country to make a life,” he said in an interview with the BBC in 2019.
“In terms of cultural upbringing, I’d be at the temple at the weekend — I’m a Hindu — but I’d also be at (Southampton Football Club) the Saints game as well on a Saturday — you do everything, you do both,” he said, also revealing that he was fortunate not to have endured a lot of racism growing up, save for one incident, when he was with his younger siblings.
With his father a general practitioner, and his mother, a pharmacist, he had an easy childhood. He studied at a prep school in Hampshire, and then he was at the prestigious Winchester College, where he was head boy and editor of the school paper; during vacations, he worked at local curry restaurant.
Oxford was the next stop and he graduated in 2001. The same year, he was interviewed along with his parents for the BBC documentary “Middle Classes: Their Rise and Sprawl”. He was an analyst at investment bank Goldman Sachs till 2004, and then a hedge fund management firm till 2009, when he left to join former colleagues at a new hedge fund launched in October 2010.
In 2009, he married Akshata, daughter of Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy and writer Sudha Murthy, who’s also the chairperson of the Infosys Foundation. Sunak and Akshata have two daughters.
Engaged with the Conservative Party since his Oxford days, Sunak got into politics full-time in 2014 when was selected for the Richmond seat in north Yorkshire — one of the safest Conservative seats, which has been held by the party for more than a century — and won it in the 2015 elections by nearly 20,000 votes.
He retained it in the 2017, and 2019 elections, with increased majorities. His predecessor as Richmond MP was William Hague, now Baron Hague of Richmond, who held important cabinet position, Including Foreign Secretary, and was Leader of the House of Commons,
A staunch proponent of “Leave” in the Brexit referendum of 2016 and subsequent parliamentary votes, Sunak’s first government job was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government (2018-19) in the Theresa May government and then as Chief Secretary to the Treasury (2019-20) in the government of Johnson, whose leadership bid he had supported.
Thank you for your continued support.
I am prepared to give everything I have in service to our nation.
Together we can restore trust, rebuild our economy and reunite the country.
He replaced his boss Javid as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2020, and while he mostly earned plaudits for steering the government’s economic response to the effects of the Covid-19 lockdown, he also became the first Chancellor to be found to have broken the law while in office by breaching lockdown norms.
His wife’s non-domicile status, which let her save huge amount of taxes in the country, also became a major controversy for him.
It is Sunak’s “treachery”, which set off the spate of resignations that forced Johnson’s resignation, that may just queer his chances to become Prime Minister.
Sunak, with 101 votes, maintained his lead over Trade Secretary Penny Mordaunt, who got 83 votes. In the first round on Wednesday, he had got 88 votes, with Mordaunt in second place with 67 votes…reports Asian Lite News
Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak still remained on top in the race to succeed Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the second round of voting among Conservative Party MPs on Thursday, but Indian-origin Attorney General Suella Braverman was knocked out.
Sunak, with 101 votes, maintained his lead over Trade Secretary Penny Mordaunt, who got 83 votes. In the first round on Wednesday, he had got 88 votes, with Mordaunt in second place with 67 votes.
In Thursday’s vote, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss still remained third with 64 votes, Equalities and Levelling Up Secretary Kemi Badenoch got 49 votes, and backbench MP Tom Tugendhat got 32 votes.
In an era of social media and hashtags, three-word political messaging is the order of the day. Brevity not gravity is the mode of communication.
In Britain, Boris Johnson, now ousted as Prime Minister, achieved runaway success with a simple slogan of ‘GET BREXIT DONE’.
This helped him sweep the 2019 general elections. He judged the public frustration about the delay in implementing the 2016 referendum verdict of British voters to leave the European Union correctly. And he kept his promise simple.
The candidates vying to succeed him have replicated his concept. Most of them have a three-word campaign message.
All the six who remained in the field prior to Thursday’s second round of balloting have crisp and concise outreaches.
Rishi Sunak, who won the highest number of votes in Wednesday’s first round of balloting, signalled ‘readyforrishi’.
Penny Mordaunt, who came second, is all acronyms — ‘PM4PM’. Liz Truss, who came third, has ‘LIZ FOR LEADER’ as her pitch, while ‘Kemi for Prime Minister’ is Kemi Badenoch’s appeal.
Tom Tugendhat has coined ‘TOM A CLEAN START’, while Suella Braverman says ‘Suella4Leader’.
Clearly, none of conjuring possesses substance. But the marketing ploy is meant to be a magnet to generate interest and thereby draw people towards the details of what a contender stands for.
Tory MPs are aiming to whittle down the field to two by the end of next week, when it will be thrown over to a postal ballot of Tory members to choose the winner, who will become prime minister.
The result will be announced on 5 September, when Boris Johnson will leave office.
Sunak has now topped the first two ballots of MPs, with the contest increasingly looking like a scrap to see who will join him in the final run-off.
His decision to quit as chancellor last week was one of the first in a wave of ministerial resignations that forced Johnson to stand down as Tory leader.
Allies of Johnson have accused Sunak of orchestrating the prime minister’s downfall and have been fiercely critical of tax hikes he introduced as chancellor.
A member of Sunak’s team said the former chancellor would “keep going with solid messaging on the economic agenda”, claiming other candidates had backed away from their pledges.
Following Thursday’s vote, Welsh Secretary Robert Buckland became the latest senior Tory MP to back Sunak, telling Talk TV he was the best person to deal with the economic challenges facing the country.
The poker faces of MPs from various camps were tested as the result was read out.
Sunak’s supporters were careful not to smile too broadly but looked satisfied. “We’re happy with that,” one of the ex-chancellor’s campaign team said.
Truss’s camp weren’t giving much away, looking ahead to the next “critical” round when they’ll hope to hoover up votes from Ms Braverman’s supporters now she’s out.
With that the remaining candidates will be off to prepare for the first TV debate, hit the phones and hone their tactics before another round of votes next week.
The leadership contest became increasingly fractious on Thursday, as allies of the candidates launched personal attacks on their rivals.
Mordaunt batted away criticism from former Brexit negotiator David Frost, who questioned her competence to be prime minister.
He said Mordaunt – a supporter of Brexit – “wouldn’t always deliver tough messages to the European Union” when he worked with her during negotiations last year.
Allies of Mordaunt said she had “nothing but respect” for Lord Frost and would “always fight for Brexit”.
The number of contenders will be whittled down to two through more rounds of secret ballot, before British parliamentarians break up for the summer recess on July 21…reports Asian Lite News
Eight candidates have been nominated to enter the race to be the leader of the Conservative Party and replace outgoing Boris Johnson as the Prime Minister, the party’s backbench 1922 Committee said.
The eight contenders who successfully enlisted the required backing of at least 20 Conservative lawmakers are: Former Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak; Foreign Secretary Liz Truss; International Trade Minister Penny Mordaunt; backbench lawmaker Tom Tugendhat; Attorney General Suella Braverman; newly appointed Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi; former Equalities Minister Kemi Badenoch; and former Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
The first round of voting among Tory lawmakers will be held on Wednesday and only those contenders who receive at least 30 votes can enter the second ballot, which is to be held on Thursday, according to the rules set by the 1922 Committee, which runs the leadership contest.
The number of contenders will be whittled down to two through more rounds of secret ballot, before British parliamentarians break up for the summer recess on July 21.
The final two contenders will then go through a postal ballot of all the Conservative members, numbering around 200,000, over the summer and the winner will be announced on September 5, becoming the new Tory leader and the UK’s next Prime Minister.
The Tory leadership race was triggered after Johnson was forced to bow to the inevitable on Thursday by an avalanche of resignations of cabinet ministers and other junior government officials in protest against his scandal-plagued leadership. Johnson continues to serve as caretaker Prime Minister until a new Tory leader succeeds him.
Johnson, who won a landslide victory in the general elections in 2019, lost support after he was caught in a string of scandals, including the Partygate scandal and the Chris Pincher scandal related to allegations of sexual misconduct by the former Conservative Party deputy chief whip.
Won’t demonise Boris, says Sunak
Meanwhile, Sunak marked the official launch of his Conservative Party leadership bid with a speech in which he pledged a “positive campaign”, which will not participate in demonising outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
The 42-year-old UK-born Indian-origin politician, who is married to Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy’s daughter Akshata Murty, admitted he had disagreements with his former boss but also praised him as someone who has a good heart.
“Boris Johnson is one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever met. And, whatever some commentators may say, he has a good heart, Sunak said in his campaign launch speech in London. Did I disagree with him? Frequently. Is he flawed? Yes and so are the rest of us. Was it no longer working? Yes, and that’s why I resigned. But let me be clear, I will have no part in a rewriting of history that seeks to demonise Boris, exaggerate his faults or deny his efforts,” he said.
In an indirect reference to some reports over the weekend of damaging briefings and an alleged dirty dossier doing the rounds of the Tory groups, Sunak said: I am running a positive campaign focused on what my leadership can offer our party and our country.
“I will not engage in the negativity that some of you may have seen and read in the media. If others wish to do that, then let them. That’s not who we are, we can be better.”
On the issue that is seen as central to the leadership race, Sunak reiterated that as a former finance minister he is determined to steer the economy in the right direction but would not be making fairy tale promises on lowering taxes right away.
Boris Johnson hosts the Prime Ministers Business Council alongside the Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer and leading business figures in 10 Downing Street. Picture by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street
“We need a return to traditional Conservative economic values and that means honesty and responsibility, not fairy tales. It is not credible to promise lots more spending and lower taxes, he said, as a clear counter-attack to some of his rivals who have promised tax cuts. So, that is my plan: tackle inflation, grow the economy and cut taxes. It is a long-term approach that will deliver long-term gains for families and businesses across the United Kingdom. I am prepared to give everything I have in service to our nation, to restore trust, rebuild our economy, and reunite the country,” Sunak said.
Unlike the more personal touch of a social media video which announced his intention to contest for the post of Tory leader following Johnson’s resignation last week, the campaign speech was more focussed on policy. Sunak laid out his long-term strategy as the future prime minister, underpinned by values of hard work, patriotism, fairness, a love of family and pragmatism.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak leaves the Prime Minister Boris Johnson weekly Cabinet Meeting inside No10 Downing Street on his way to deliver his 2021 Budget to the House of Commons. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
Previously, the favourite in a poll of Conservative party members, who will ultimately determine the choice, was Ben Wallace, presently defence secretary. He has, however, declared he will not compete, reports Ashis Ray
Rishi Sunak, of East African Indian origin, was on Monday being touted as the bookmakers’ favourite in the British Conservative party’s leadership contest. The winner will automatically become the UK’s Prime Minister.
Previously, the favourite in a poll of Conservative party members, who will ultimately determine the choice, was Ben Wallace, presently defence secretary. He has, however, declared he will not compete.
Oddscheckers’ price on Sunak was 1.6/1. The second favourite was Penny Mordaunt, minister for international trade, who had in the past been defence secretary, at 3.3/1. The third favourite was the foreign secretary Liz Truss at 4/1. Tom Tugendhat, who has no ministerial experience but is chair of the House of Commons’ Foreign Affairs Committee, was quoted at 9/1; while Jeremy Hunt, a former foreign secretary, was being offered at 14/1.
Another bookmaker Skybet also had Sunak as favourite at 15/8, Mordaunt as second favourite at 7/2 and Truss as third favourite at 4/1.
The vacancy was created when the incumbent Boris Johnson lost the confidence of his party MPs after a series of scandals, and resigned on Thursday. 11 candidate have since thrown their hats into the ring. Among them, Sunak, who chancellor of the exchequer before he resigned last Tuesday, and Suella Fernandes Braverman, who is of Goan descent and is still serving as caretaker attorney general.
There are two runners of Pakistani extraction – Sajid Javid, who was health secretary in the Johnson cabinet till he led the spate of resignations on Tuesday, and Rehman Chishti, who was appointed a third tier minister in the Foreign Office after nearly 60 ministers decided not to remain in office under Johnson.
On Monday evening in London, Sir Nicholas Brady, the chairman of the Conservative Parliamentary Party’s ‘1922 Committee’, which sets the rules of the race, said nominations will close on Tuesday. A candidate will need the backing of at least 20 MPs out of a total of 358 Conservative MPs to go forward. The first ballot will take place on Wednesday afternoon and the outcome revealed the same evening. Similarly, the second round is provisionally scheduled to take place on Thursday. He expected that a maximum of three rounds of balloting will be needed to whittle down the contestants to two.
The full membership of the Conservative party – estimated to be around a quarter of a million – will then choose the winner. The result will be declared on 5 September, when parliament is scheduled to return from its summer recess.
The Guardian indicated: “With just two contenders so far having the support of the 20 Tory (Conservative) MPs needed to get them on to the ballot, the remaining nine hopefuls were scrambling to shore up support by Tuesday night before knockout votes begin on Wednesday.” Sunak and Mordaunt were said to have the backing of 40 and 24 MPs respectively. Braverman is reported to have 12. A candidate will have to muster at least 30 votes in the first round to enter the second round.
Johnson will remain as lame duck premier until the election of his successor is made public. He told reporters he “wouldn’t want to damage anybody’s chances” by offering his backing to any of the candidates.
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak going through his Budget speech inside his office at No11 Downing Street minutes before heading to the commons for his first Budget. Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
But the UK doesn’t have a monopoly on opportunity. Too much of the migration conversation is about how many Indians come to the UK…reports Asian Lite News
Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak has opened up at length about his Indian heritage and growing up in Britain in a hard-working British Indian family at an awards ceremony celebrating Indian diaspora achievements across different fields.
The 42-year-old finance minister, born in the UK to National Health Service (NHS) general practitioner (GP) father Yashvir and pharmacist mother Usha, described the UK as a “rewarding karma bhoomi” where “someone like me can become Chancellor”.
He called for the India-UK relationship to look beyond the shared history to become a partnership of equals, where the brightest talent from both countries can travel back and forth to study and work.
“As the child and grandchild of immigrants, I can testify to the openness, fairness, and, yes, warmth, with which British society welcomes talented individuals who seek to contribute to our society and become a part of our communities,” said Sunak, in his speech at the UK-India Awards at Fairmont Windsor Park, near London, on Friday.
“So, if you want to build great businesses, undertake great science or create great art, the UK will be the most rewarding karma bhoomi you will find. But the UK doesn’t have a monopoly on opportunity. Too much of the migration conversation is about how many Indians come to the UK.
“This is a partnership of equals, so we need to make it easier for British students to study in India… I want to see us doing more to reinforce that ‘living bridge’, travelling in both directions between our countries,” he said.
Tracing his family’s roots back to his grandparents who moved from East Africa to the UK when his mother was just 15 years old, the senior Cabinet minister reflected upon his humble beginnings and working tirelessly for his family business.
“I didn’t grow up in a wealthy family. My overriding memory of childhood is how hard my parents worked,” he recalled.
“Dad was an National Health Service (NHS) General Practitioner (GP), and worked extra jobs, evenings, and weekends. Almost every night of my childhood, he worked until the early hours, writing up patient notes and referral letters. Mum owned a pharmacy – Sunak Pharmacy,” he said.
“Our life was built around the business. Out of school, I’d serve customers or do deliveries; help dispense medicines; do the bookkeeping. And every Sunday we’d pile into the car to clean the shop, all of us together, the whole family. It was a family business – that’s just what you do,” he shared.
Addressing the largely Indian diaspora gathering of parliamentarians, entrepreneurs and innovators at the annual awards organised by UK-headquartered India Global Forum (IGF) to celebrate the year’s highlights within the UK-India corridor, Sunak as the guest of honour said his family’s story resonates with the wider British Indian story as he thanked his own family for all their “sacrifices”.
“I learnt early on that family matters. Families nurture our children and teach them good conduct; support us, unconditionally; pass on culture, religion, and identity. No government could even begin to replicate the profound bond family forms,” said the minister, who was joined by wife Akshata Murty – the daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy.
The minister, an Oxford and Stanford University alumni who made history by lighting diyas on Diwali outside his 11 Downing Street home in November 2020, shared that he will be back at a childhood temple in Southampton for family prayer day this weekend.
He added: “Sixty years after my Naniji boarded a plane in East Africa, on a warm sunny evening in October, her great-grandaughters, my kids, played in the street outside our home, painted Rangoli on the doorstep, lit sparklers and diyas; had fun like so many other families on Diwali. Except the street was Downing St. And the door was the door to No 11.
“I’m incredibly proud of where I come from. It will always be an enormous part of who I am. And it brings me joy to live, and belong, in a country where, for all our faults, for all our challenges, someone like me can become Chancellor. Our task now is to make sure that’s not the end of the British Indian story, but the beginning.”
Touching upon UK-India relations and the ongoing free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations, the Chancellor highlighted financial services as a big opportunity that would help mobilise large amounts of capital from around the world for India’s economic growth.
“The flow of savings from the West to attractive investment opportunities in fast-growing India will be one of the defining movements of capital of our working lives,” he said.
Addressing Serum Institute of India (SII) CEO Adar Poonawalla directly at the awards, the minister hailed the Covishield partnership between the countries as a great example of joint India-UK innovation.
When those investors put the proceeds in commercial bank deposits at the Bank, it had to pay interest at its official interest rate…reports Asian Lite News
Rishi Sunak has been accused of failing to act soon enough to save £11bn of taxpayers’ money that has been used to pay interest on government debt.
The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) said the losses stemmed from the chancellor’s failure to insure against interest rate rises.
It meant higher than necessary payments on £900bn of reserves created through the quantitative easing (QE) programme.
The Treasury said it has “a clear financing strategy” on debt.
The NIESR’s Professor Jagjit Chadha, told the Financial Times that Sunak’s actions had left the country with “an enormous bill and heavy continuing exposure to interest rate risk”.
According to the FT report, the Bank of England (BoE) created £895bn of money through quantitative easing, most of which was used to buy government bonds from pension funds and other investors.
When those investors put the proceeds in commercial bank deposits at the Bank, it had to pay interest at its official interest rate.
Last year, when the official rate was still 0.1%, the NIESR – an economic research group – said the government should have insured the cost of servicing this debt against the risk of rising interest rates.
It suggested converting the debt into government bonds with longer to pay it back.
Prof Chadha said Sunak’s failure to do this had cost taxpayers £11bn.
“It would have been much better to have reduced the scale of short-term liabilities earlier, as we argued for some time, and to exploit the benefits of longer-term debt issuance,” he told the FT.
Labour’s shadow treasury minister Tulip Siddiq said: “These are astronomical sums for the chancellor to lose, and leaves working people picking up the cheque for his severe wastefulness while he hikes their taxes in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.
“This government has played fast and loose with taxpayers’ money. Britain deserves a government that respects public money and delivers for people across the country.”
A Treasury spokesman said: “There are long-standing arrangements around the asset purchase facility – to date £120bn has been transferred to HM Treasury and used to reduce our debt, but we have always been aware that at some point the direction of those payments may need to reverse.
“We have a clear financing strategy to meet the government’s funding needs, which we set independently of the Bank of England’s monetary policy decisions.
“It is for the [Bank’s] Monetary Policy Committee to take decisions on quantitative easing operations to meet the objectives in their remit, and we remain fully committed to their independence.”
The collapse of TerraUSD, a popular stablecoin which was the 10th largest cryptocurrency, triggered central bank concerns in a little-regulated sector…reports Asian Lite News
Britain’s finance ministry set out plans on Tuesday for adapting existing rules to deal for any major stablecoin collapses, such as with TerraUSD this month.
It is the latest sign of how regulators are trying to catch up with fast-moving developments in crypto markets which straddle national borders.
“Since the initial commitment to regulate certain types of stablecoins, events in cryptoasset markets have further highlighted the need for appropriate regulation to help mitigate consumer, market integrity and financial stability risks,” the ministry said.
Banks, insurers and mainstream payment companies must comply with rules which ensure their deposit accounts, policies or services can be transferred quickly to another provider if they go bust, to help avoid panic and contagion in markets.
Stablecoins, which play a pivotal role in crypto markets, are digital tokens pegged to the value of traditional assets, such as the U.S. dollar, and are seen as having a bigger role in payments.
The collapse of TerraUSD, a popular stablecoin which was the 10th largest cryptocurrency, triggered central bank concerns in a little-regulated sector.
“The failure of a systemic digital settlement asset firm could have a wide range of financial stability as well as consumer protection impacts,” the ministry said in a consultation paper.
“This could be both in terms of continuity of services critical to the operation of the economy and access of individuals to their funds or assets.”
While work continues on whether bespoke rules were needed for winding down failed stablecoins, existing rules for handling payment firm failures should be adapted, the ministry said.
It proposed amending the Financial Market Infrastructure Special Administration Regime, which would give the Bank of England powers to ensure continuity in stablecoin payment services during a crisis.
He repeated his view that no options were off the table if oil and gas companies did not provide significant investment soon in Britain…reports Asian Lite News
Finance minister Rishi Sunak said he was “pragmatic” about the idea of a windfall tax on the profits of oil and gas companies as a possible way to raise money to provide more help to households facing the strain of higher energy prices.
“I’m not naturally attracted to the idea of them (windfall taxes) but what I do know is that these companies are making a significant amount of profit at the moment because of these very elevated prices,” Sunak told BBC television.
He repeated his view that no options were off the table if oil and gas companies did not provide significant investment soon in Britain.
“I find there are two camps of people actually, there’s some people who think windfall taxes can never be the answer, And then there are other people who think windfall taxes are an easy, quick, simple answer to solve every problem,” he said.
“I’m not in either of those schools of thought, I’m pragmatic about it.”
Asked about the chance of fresh support for households, Sunak said he had previously said he was ready to do more and he wanted to see how energy costs develop ahead of a half-yearly review in October which would “help us to get the decisions right.”
Chancellor of Exchequer Rishi Sunak in the Cabinet room for the Prime Minister’s weekly cabinet meeting before delivering his Spring Statement in the House of Commons . Picture by Andrew Parsons / No 10 Downing Street
The chancellor of the exchequer earlier this month asked the adviser on ministerial standards, Christopher Geidt, to review whether he followed all the rules after revelations about his family’s financial affairs stoked political controversy…reports Asian Lite News
The government’s ethics advisor said on Wednesday he had cleared embattled finance minister Rishi Sunak of breaching ministerial codes after investigating his family’s tax affairs.
The chancellor of the exchequer earlier this month asked the adviser on ministerial standards, Christopher Geidt, to review whether he followed all the rules after revelations about his family’s financial affairs stoked political controversy.
“I advise that the requirements of the ministerial code have been adhered to by the Chancellor, and that he has been assiduous in meeting his obligations and in engaging with this investigation,” Geidt wrote.
Geidt also ruled that there was no conflict of interest in Sunak holding a US permanent resident Green Card, which he has since given up.
In a letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Sunak had requested that Geidt assess his declarations of interest since he first became a minister in 2018.
A political storm erupted after it was leaked that Sunak’s wealthy Indian wife has benefited from “non-domicile” tax status in the UK, shielding her overseas income from taxes at a time when they are rising for most Britons.
After initially claiming his spouse Akshata Murty — whose father co-founded the Indian IT behemoth Infosys — was the victim of a smear campaign, the couple U-turned and vowed she would pay British taxes on all her global income.
Sunak was nevertheless accused of hypocrisy for raising taxes for Britons in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, while his own family has seen millions of pounds in Infosys dividends shielded from his own ministry.
Sunak is believed to be Britain’s richest member of parliament.
Once a leading contender to succeed Johnson as the British leader struggled with his own series of scandals, Sunak has seen his popularity plummet in recent weeks amid the cost-of-living crisis and the revelations.
Earlier this month, Sunday Mirror reported that Sunak had moved his belongings out of Downing Street.
It reported that removal vans were seen lining up to take furniture and personal items from the flat shared by Sunak and wife Akshata Murthy and move them to their newly-refurbished, luxury West London pad, said the Sunday Mirror report.
A red velvet armchair, a shelving unit and several bags and boxes were loaded onto two trucks, which arrived at Downing Street’s back gate on Saturday morning.
But the Sunday Mirror said the move was planned before Sunak’s popularity nosedived this week.
The family are making the move because their eldest daughter is about to go into her final term of primary school, the report added.
They want to be nearer to her school for the last few months before she goes to boarding school.
Previously a shoe-in to replace Boris Johnson as the next Prime Minister, Sunak’s fortunes have been on the wane since last month’s disastrous Spring Statement failed to provide help for families facing a cost of living crisis.
This week it was revealed Murthy enjoyed non-dom tax status and Sunak had held on to his Green Card as a ‘resident’ of the US for more than a year after becoming Chancellor.
It comes amid calls for partners and spouses of ministers to be banned from being non-doms and avoiding paying tax on money made outside the UK.
Earlier this month, it emerged that Murty owns a stake in Infosys. Geidt notes in his findings that the shareholding was “properly declared” and that the Indian software firm has held no UK Treasury contracts during Sunak’s time in office.
Sunak, a 41-year-old former hedge fund manager, had been seen as a likely successor to Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, until the financial revelations raised questions about his judgment and damaged his sure-footed image.
He has also been fined by police, along with Johnson and some 50 others, for attending a party in the Prime Minister’s office in 2020 that broke coronavirus lockdown rules at the time.
The Indian-origin finance minister had referred himself to Lord Christopher Geidt to investigate any alleged ministerial conduct breaches after revelations that his wife, the daughter of Infosys co-founder Narayana Murthy, did not pay UK tax on her Indian income under her legal non-domicile tax status.
Geidt answers directly to the UK Prime Minister, and last year he cleared Johnson of breaking the ministerial code by failing to disclose that a Conservative party donor had funded a pricey refurbishment of his official Downing Street residence.
