UK PM Contender Rishi Sunak Irks Netizens After Old Video On 'No Working-Class Friends' Resurfaces

A twitter user posted the clip after she saw Rishi Sunak's campaign video in support of his bid to become PM and found it contradicting of what he'd said in the video clip back in 2001

New Delhi: Former British Chancellor Rishi Sunak, who emerged as an early frontrunner in the race to UK leadership, has invited sharp criticism from netizens after an old video of the 21-year-old Rishi Sunak resurfaced in which he appears to be saying he did not have working-class friends. Kathryn Franklin,  who posted the small video, told UK publication WalesOnline that she saw the video on a local BBC Politics show in March.  The purported video that has gone viral is from the BBC documentary 'Middle Classes- Their Rise & Sprawl'.

"I have friends who are aristocrats, I have friends who are upper-class, I have friends who are, you know, working-class," he had said.

"I mix and match and then I go to see kids from an inner-city state school and tell them to apply to Oxford and talk to them about people like me. And then I shock them at the end of chatting to them for half an hour and tell them I was at Winchester and one of my best friends is from Eton or whatever. And then they're like: 'Oh OK'," said Rishi Sunak in the documentary according to the UK publication Wales Online report.

"I am very lucky to have been at these places, it does put me in an elite in society. I always consider myself professional middle class, I don't think being Asian is a defining feature," added Rishi on studying at Winchester College and then at Oxford.

The viral video has evoked criticism on the social microblogging site.  

This comes amid Rishi Sunak launching his campaign with the hashtag 'Ready for Rishi'(#Ready4Rishi) for UK leadership where he posted a video talking about his immigrant heritage and saying “family is everything to me”. He also adds that he will not be a candidate offering “comforting fairy tales”. In his campaign launch video, Sunak talked about his humble Indian origin and how his grandparents moved to the UK with a hope for a better life.

Franklin tweeted the old clipping after she saw Rishi Sunak's campaign video in support of his bid to become PM and found it contradicting what he'd said in the video clip back in 2001.

Sunak, the Southampton-born MP for Richmond, is married to Akshata Murty, the daughter of Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy. He became known for devising a massive package worth tens of billions of pounds to help businesses and workers during pandemic.