Rishi Sunak went without Sky TV so his parents could send him to private school

[number10bus]

Honestly this has really annoyed me, apart from the fact it's such crap - he came from a family where his parents were a GP and a pharmacist, it's like he's literally thought of the most working class stereotype and applied that. He's so out of touch and I don't know why this one has annoyed me so much but it really has.

I'm not much older than our prime minister and we didn't have one either, or holidays and not much in the way of any luxury items and guess what my parents couldn't afford to send me to private school despite them working very hard too.

Agreed. Everyone on our road had children (multiple) in private school and a large chunk were GPs or hospital consultants. Most with a stay at home mum. We could all afford lots of nice hobbies too (but noone had sky...it wasn't really the done thing!)

And a generation prior to that my grandfather (a GP) sent 5 children to private school, and my grandmother didn't work and also had a housekeeper pretty much full time.

It says a lot about upward house price trends , upwards school fees trends and the downward trends of doctors salaries that people think private school would be out of reach

It really is isn't it.

Quite Bizarre.

No, it’s annoying because his comment was very unrealistic and tone deaf. He could have said that his parents never went for a holiday, he and his siblings got a job from early age, he only wore second hand clothes, his parents only had one old second hand car etc etc. And any of these would have been much more realistic but Sky TV…. He really doesn’t have a clue about real life.

He could have cut and pasted from any one of about 100 Mumsnet threads!

Agree pizza it's the fact he thinks not having sky tv is what working class people living in poverty struggle with. He doesn't grasp they quite often can't afford the basics you need.

DeadParrott
Don't make it worse Clav - best to get the grieving and then anger over as quickly as you can.

I'm enjoying myself!
(Although I have to leave now to pick up ds2).

Sir Beer Korma even bought a donkey sanctuary for his mother

He bought a plot of land in Surrey which he sold at the end of 2022, making a nice profit of £275,739.

She works for the NHS

She retrained - she was a solicitor. Sunak's father worked for the NHS.

Keir was the finest barrister of his generation

I doubt it - just ambitious;

Keir Starmer put £2000-a-week chauffeur driven car on expenses while head of CPS.
Future Labour leader expensed three times what his successor in the same job would.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-expenses-chauffeur-driven-car-b2319779.html

I can't believe you scoured Mumsnet back a decade just to prove you are right!😭

What difference does it make whether he was a day pupil or a boarder? The fact remains most people in 1995 couldn't afford to pay £8k + per year to send their child to an exclusive school.

Sunak has completely blown his campaign. All people will remember now is his atrocious D-Day behaviour, this Sky gaffe and his general tendency to be tetchy.

He grew up not knowing any working class people. He doesn't know how to put petrol in a car. He doesn't know how to do contactless card payments. He is so far removed from normal life that it has made him an idiot.

The only talent he has is turning our tax money into his family money.

I don’t think he’s trying to be a ‘man of the people’ as such, more highlighting the point that his parents worked hard to prioritise his and his siblings’ education over other things. Sky TV was a regretful example of what he went without, but he seems normal and believable to me. He’d get my vote over Keir’s.

In case relevant, I come from a working class Northern background - Dad a taxi driver and Mum a cleaner. I worked hard and now my kid goes to a private school because for us it was also a priority. No fancy holidays, clothes or cars for us. (But we do have Sky.)

I also want to add that I realise working hard doesn’t always mean affording something ‘extra’ like private education / expensive car. But we make the most of what we can afford. I feel a bit sad that people think anyone with a private education is minted - it’s not the case at my kid’s school anyway. But the way Rishi has been vindicated is pushing me more his way than the opposition’s.

l reckon he’s had a better offer and has to take it up in the summer !!

He's not much younger than me and sky wasn't a thing as a kid for me. It's like saying we didn't have a electric car..... because they didn't exist back then...... or a e bike, or a smart phone 🙄 that's not making a sacrifice. He is sinking in quick sand

I’m 50 and the only reason I have Sky is because my mum got and lets us log in. It’s not a luxury I want to prioritise. I’d rather have treats.

Yup. I agree. He’s got his own agenda and has never wanted to change the country for the better. Just secure his own position and power. No values. No integrity. No depth.

Yes that would at least explain how Sunak is acting. The other option is he is a total idiot.

You should have got a Damehood for your services to the party on MN (maybe you have!) but if you haven't that donkey has surely bolted. End of an era. Don't forget to get in a lifeboat whilst you can.

Well you're right that people shouldn't splurge on holidays, and my parents were right to prioritize buying a house when they were kids newlyweds, and I benefited from this in turn, of course. What used to get on my nerves was when they used to say "We're not LUCKY to own a house, we SACRIFICED. We didn't go on honeymoon!" As if skipping a holiday on one occasion would make any difference to most people in "Generation Rent".

That’s exactly what I’ve told DH today. No way they were poor migrants, they probably brought some cash with them.
One Sky won’t cut it.

A GP and pharmacist would be high earners in those days & housing was a lot cheaper.

I think a pharmacist would have had their own shop, with a kind of monopoly in their small area, so would have earned a lot.
Then they would have sold that to Boots or whomever for an enormous amount of money.
Mrs Sunak probably earned the money in that house.
But you have to ask who is running the comms for Dishy, it really is beginning to look like he wants to lose the whole thing.

Yes it was. Not when he was at preschool, but it launched in the UK in 1989, and was fairly common within a few years of that. I grew up in a lower middle class home, and my parents didn't have it because they thought it was low-brow rubbish (we were only allowed to watch BBC growing up, not CITV). My brother's best friend lived in a council house and his Dad was on the brew, but they had Sky so my brother thought they must be rich. I now wonder if Rishi Sunk was my brother 😂?

My dad was a tradesman and my mum a nurse and they managed school fees back in the 90's. In fact loads of people did - half the schools i remeber from back then have closed or converted to state. There were still assisted places around though (but i didn't have one). My mum rarely spent anything on herself. And we lived in a little house in a less affluent area. But we did have sky.

Tradesmen can make very good money.

Just sat down with a gin. This should be fun 🤘🏻

Sky was very much looked down on when I was growing up. Neighbours disliked the look of the dishes and it was considered to be 'common' (even worse than watching ITV - imagine!). Football for proletariat. Rishi's family would never have had a Sky dish anyway - too middle class and too into cricket.

The Sky News debate intro is literally asking 'will Keir drop the Ming vase' I.e jeopardise the election by saying something stupid at this late stage.

Manifesto analysis anyone?

The media are turning this into an episode of Just a Minute