Rishi Sunak has said he went without “lots of things” as a child, including Sky TV.
In an interview with ITV News, the prime minister, who attended the fee-paying Winchester College, said his parents “wanted to put everything into our education and that was a priority”.
Mr Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty are estimated to have a personal fortune of £651m.
Labour has sought to use Mr Sunak’s wealth to portray him as out of touch and disconnected from ordinary people during a cost-of-living crisis.
Asked if he had ever gone without something, the PM told ITV: “Yes, I mean, my family emigrated here with very little. And that’s how I was raised. I was raised with the values of hard work.”
Mr Sunak’s father was a GP, while his mother ran her own pharmacy.
Asked what sort of things had to be sacrificed, he said: “Lots of things.”
Pressed for an example, he said: “All sorts of things like lots of people. There’ll be all sorts of things that I would’ve wanted as a kid that I couldn’t have. Famously, Sky TV, so that was something that we never had growing up actually.”
Speaking on the campaign trail Mr Sunak said he was “very, very fortunate that my parents had good jobs”.
He added: “But the reality of the situation is my grandparents emigrated in this country, with very little and in three generations, I’m sitting here talking to you as prime minister.”
Source: BBC
