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.

He was born in 1980. Sky TV launched in November 1990. So wasn't in existence until he was 10ish. What a prat!

I’ve known a couple of instances of this. In both cases, families of a boy and a girl and the boy was sent to private school and the girl to state school.

And in both cases I was friends with the girl when we were both adults .And in both cases, yes it did fuck then up a bit in the inside. Both felt less loved and valued by their parents.

One was open about that and trying to process it, she very much focussed on living her own life the way she wanted to and trying not to give a fuck about what her parents thought. Which is one reaction to being hurt. But she did let herself be angry with her parents and in her early thirties she kind of managed to get past it.

The other was really pretty wounded and had tried therapy but stopped. Her parents had divorced and after the divorce her dad paid maintenance for her but maintenance plus school fees for her brother.

For a while, at least she felt that her mum was on her side, as her mum disagreed with the decision but didn’t have the wherewithal to even the score. (Although she did go along with sending the brother away). But when her mum died she had a nervous breakdown.

She had this quiet desperation about trying to impress her father and his side of the family, to prove she was good enough.

She spoke to me about the difficulties of having to have two accents when she was growing up- one at school so she didn’t get beaten up for being “posh”and another around her brother and her dad so she didn’t get ridiculed for being “common”.

Eventually she emigrated to get a fresh start. She really struggled with making a commitment to a relationship, despite trying really, really hard and being absolute desperate for one.

She was very successful in her career and eventually had a child by going to a sperm bank, because she felt time was running out on her.

Anyways.

That's so sad. Interestingly, it looks as if Rishi's sister lives in the US.
I think it must be difficult for this kind of blatant favouritism not to mess the unfavored child/ the family relationship up.

So much misinformation on this thread.
Rishi's parents came to the UK as children. They met and were educated here. His grandparents came here in the 1960s, already qualified, so did not come with absolutely nothing, let alone his parents.

In the 1980s and 1990s it was perfectly possible for people to afford private education as a fairly average middle class couple, often on a single salary. My mother has not worked since marriage, yet they managed to put my brothers through an elite private school. My grandmother paid for me, because yes, misogyny was alive and kicking in white Britain and she wasn't prepared to sit by and watch my father treat me differently.

Winchester only had a few boarding places in the 6rh form in the 1990s, not from 13+. They still don't have day places at 13+. Rishi was a boarder. My cousins were there a few years after him. Also paid for from a single salary, my aunt did not work.

Growing up, we did not have Sky, still don't but that was snobbery from my father, not inability to afford. Still don't have it now as an adult. And it definitely isn't going without that has allowed us to privately educate. That has been the culmination of decades of choices, good luck and hard work. Mostly choices and luck though.

Rishi is completely out of touch with the reality of the vast majority of the population. I probably am too, given my background. The difference is I am listening and trying to learn and understand. I will admit to having voted Tory when I was younger. Never, ever again.

@rainingsnoring very much so.

Now I come to think about it, the other one did go off round the world, a couple of times for work (WWOOFing and a kibbutz I think) add once travelling by herself before she really managed to come to terms with things.

She spent more than half her twenties out of the country. So maybe distance helps.

Leave the poor man alone. Whatever else he may be responsible for he can't be blamed for his parents and their decisions. Envy and jealousy might best be confined to X.

Kier Starmer is a barrister who owns £10m worth of land in Oxted, Surrey

I’m not a fan of any of them, but it’s not as though either have just come from the factories or pits

I remember when sky tv launched in the 1990s… only one house on my road had a sky dish… we all thought that they must have been much more well off than the rest of us! It turns out that a couple of years later when they sold their house that it was actually a dummy dish! Given that Sunak was 10 when it launched (he is a year younger than me) he would have being preparing to be a boarder at Private School I can understand why regardless of wealth his parents might not have bought it! There was literally just the Simpsons and QVC back then!

The premier league didn’t start until 1992 and although Southampton was a founding member of the Premier League Sky Sports didn’t show football from England until then with the 1992/93 season! At this point Sunak would have been away at private school and there isn’t actually any football shown in the summer holidays as terrestrial tv has rights to international games!

So essentially his pity party literally doesn’t add up! Sky sports didn’t show any UK games until 1992/93 season- just golf and Italian football!

So no actual reason to get Sky tv until August 1992, and by the time he came home from Boarding School the season would have been over!

If he had wanted to seem ‘working class’ he would have done what we did… go to the social club to watch football matches - making a lemonade last two hours!

Oh my word. What a load of jealousy. His parents spent money on what they fine well wanted. Not his fault🙄

WindsurfingDreams
Exactly, there's coming here with actually "nothing"

I haven't watched the interview but the BBC have quoted him as saying (in the interview);

"my family emigrated here with very little" - where does "nothing" come from?

When his maternal grandmother first came to the UK she rented a room in Leicester and worked as a bookkeeper for an estate agent. After saving her wages for a year she could then afford to bring over her husband and children - including Sunak's mother who was 15 at the time.

We only had two stations on a 9" or 10" screen. On the occasions I was allowed to stay up thy played the National Anthem (for which we stood) around 10:30 to 11:00 and we went to bed. What a pathetic idiot!

Sky dishes were originally much bigger than that, round concave and white with a long black decoder! Those oval dishes only came in at the turn of the century!

💯 he did it on purpose
He's not so out of touch that anyone can think sky tv is anywhere near the price of private education
I mean come on
We're talking between £50-130 roughly a month!
That will get you a few sessions of after school tuition 🙄
He's so slimey and arrogant
Like ergh how icky to boast of being more well off than the masses

I think Rishi has his eye on the door,

Last call for Mr Sunak please, your flight is ready for embarkation...

And Keir can sit down as well, if I hear bloody tool maker once more I shall start throwing the contents of my tool box at him.

He doesn't do commercial. Private jets/helicopters are the preferred means of transport. Obv when he moves he can go 1st class esp if someone else is picking up the tab

Saying they didn’t buy Sky to afford it, I think many would have to give up more than just Sky, but most PMs went to Private School, Nick Clegg went to Westminster School where Louis Theroux was his “run around person”.

Tony Blair was at Durham Boarding School.

David Cameron and Boris Johnson both Eton.
As per Google only 11 PMs did not attend fee paying schools, most recent being Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

Some may try to look less posh than they are (how many houses does Tony Blair now own)?
It would be nice to see more MPs from state schools aspire and enter politics that remain true to their word (ie Frank Fields etc), and go for the top job that may reflect the people a bit better. Aspiring the next generation is key, from all walks of life.

envbeckyc
Given that Sunak was 10 when it launched (he is a year younger than me) he would have being preparing to be a boarder at Private School
So no actual reason to get Sky tv until August 1992, and by the time he came home from Boarding School the season would have been over!

He was a day boy at Winchester, not a boarder, and the school starts from age 13 anyway.

Noodles1234
As per Google only 11 PMs did not attend fee paying schools, most recent being Margaret Thatcher and John Major.

I think Gordon Brown, Theresa May and Liz Truss attended state schools.

You are @tommyhoundmum have both spectacularly missed the point in your posts.

ItsFuckingBoringFeedingEveryoneUntilYouDie
Rishi was a boarder

Actually he was a day boy.

No, he wasn't. Winchester does not have day places at 13+. It has a very few in the 6th form. Look at their own website. Read his biography.

I think May was at a private prep school before she went to the Grammar School.