Downing Street downtime: how prime ministers like to relax

Rishi Sunak plays a game of cricket in the Downing Street garden. Photograph: Simon Walker/No10 Downing Street

Painting buses, reading bonkbusters and playing tennis against a machine, are just a few of the ways British prime ministers have said they unwind and “chillax”.

Rishi Sunak is said to be a keen gamer, a big fan of Jilly Cooper’s novel Riders, which he reads to relax, and a decent cricketer. As chancellor, he admitted to being a fan of “collecting Coca-Cola things”, telling two sniggering school pupils: “I am a Coke addict. I am a total Coke addict.”