Rishi Sunak Explained: What Really Happened to the Last British Prime Minister

Politics moves fast, but the fall of the last British Prime Minister felt like watching a car crash in slow motion. One minute he's the tech-savvy "Dishy Rishi" saving the economy with furlough checks, and the next, he's standing in the pouring rain outside 10 Downing Street, getting soaked while a protestor blares "Things Can Only Get Better" from a nearby speaker.

It was brutal.

Honestly, Rishi Sunak is a bit of a walking contradiction. He was the first British Asian to lead the UK, a practicing Hindu who took his oath on the Bhagavad Gita, and one of the wealthiest men to ever sit in that office. Yet, despite the Harvard degree and the Goldman Sachs resume, he couldn't quite figure out how to stop his party from imploding.

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The Five Pledges that Became a Noose

When Sunak took over from the chaotic, 49-day disaster that was Liz Truss, he tried to be the adult in the room. He gave himself five very specific homework assignments. Halve inflation. Grow the economy. Reduce debt. Cut NHS waiting lists. Stop the boats.

He basically bet his entire premiership on those five lines.

By the time the 2024 election rolled around, the results were... messy. Sure, inflation did drop. You can't take that away from him. But the "Stop the Boats" promise—referring to asylum seekers crossing the English Channel—became an absolute nightmare of legal battles over his Rwanda plan. The UK spent millions of pounds on a scheme that essentially never got off the ground. People were frustrated. They weren't just mad about the policy; they were tired of the constant headlines about it.

It felt like the government was stuck in a loop.

Why the Wealth Factor Actually Mattered

You've probably seen the clips of him struggling to use a contactless card at a petrol station. Or the "smart" coffee mug that cost more than most people's weekly groceries.

In a vacuum, being rich isn't a crime. But during a cost-of-living crisis? It’s a terrible look. While families were choosing between "heating and eating," the Prime Minister was living in a world of heated swimming pools and bespoke suits. It created this weird distance. People felt like he didn't get it. He talked like a spreadsheet, and the country wanted a human.

The July 2024 Landslide

Why did he call the election in July? Nobody knows for sure. Most experts thought he’d wait until the autumn of 2024 to hope for a "feel-good" factor from falling interest rates. Instead, he went early. It backfired.

The Conservative Party didn't just lose; they were hollowed out. They went from a massive majority under Boris Johnson to their worst performance in the history of the party. It wasn't just a defeat; it was a rejection. Keir Starmer walked into Downing Street with a landslide, and just like that, the Sunak era was over.

Life After Number 10

Since leaving office, Sunak hasn't vanished. He’s still an MP (at least for now), but you’ll often find him popping up at tech conferences or talking about AI. Just recently, in late 2025, he was spotted at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Singapore. He’s lean, he’s focused, and he’s clearly more comfortable talking about Silicon Valley than he ever was talking about social care in a rainy town hall in Northern England.

There’s a lot of talk about him eventually moving to California. It makes sense. His wife, Akshata Murty, has massive business ties there, and Sunak always seemed to have one foot in the Santa Monica sunshine anyway.

What Most People Get Wrong About Sunak

A lot of folks think he was just a "soft" version of the Tories who came before him. That's not really true. Sunak was actually quite fiscally conservative. He was the one who pushed for the "National Insurance" hike when he was Chancellor, and he was skeptical of the "dash for growth" that sank Liz Truss.

He was a technocrat in a populist era.

• He stabilized the markets after the mini-budget crisis.
• He navigated the post-Brexit Windsor Framework with the EU.
• He was the first PM of color, which is a massive historical milestone regardless of your politics.

But he also oversaw a period where the NHS felt like it was breaking. He struggled to discipline his own MPs. He was the leader of a party that had been in power for 14 years, and honestly, the public was just bored of them.

What Keir Starmer Inherited

The transition wasn't exactly smooth. Starmer immediately pointed to a "£22 billion black hole" in the public finances that he claimed Sunak’s government had hidden. Whether that’s political theater or hard truth is still being debated in the House of Commons today, but it set the tone for 2025.

Sunak’s legacy is currently being written by the people who replaced him. They’re using him as the benchmark for "what not to do."

Actionable Insights: Moving Forward

If you're following British politics or just curious about how we got here, keep an eye on these specific indicators over the next few months:

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1. The Resignation Honours List: Sunak's list of peerages and knighthoods (which included big names like Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt) is still causing ripples in the House of Lords. Watch for how these new peers influence legislation.
2. The Tory Leadership Shift: The Conservative Party is currently trying to find its "soul" again. Are they going back to Sunak-style technocracy or moving toward the populist right of Reform UK? The local election results in May 2026 will be the first real test.
3. The "California Move" Watch: If Sunak vacates his seat in Richmond (Yorkshire), it will trigger a massive by-election that will be a huge headache for the current government.

Sunak wasn't the "worst" Prime Minister the UK ever had—that's a title many give to his predecessor—but he might have been the most out of place. He was a 21st-century finance guy trying to run an 18th-century institution during a 20th-century industrial crisis. It was never going to be easy.