The prime minister’s tax return crept out with the house in recess. But the front page of the Financial Times splashed a blunt warning: “Sunak makes £1.8m capital gains as he struggles to engage with hard-up voters.” Does it matter when the Tory frontbench has always been packed with the enormously rich? After all, politicians are paid beyond most people’s wildest expectations, with the average UK worker earning less than half their MP’s annual salary.
Forelock-tugging Britain, which has elected five rich Etonian PMs since the second world war, may be undergoing a sea change in attitudes. A multimillionaire chancellor and a PM richer than the king are proving a political problem on the doorstep. In Wellingborough, participants in a More in Common focus group with 2019 Tory voters said the prime minister was “financially on another planet” and “abandoning hard-working people”.
