Rishi Sunak mocked for saying he “went without” Sky TV as a child

12 June, 2024

Rishi Sunak

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has been mocked for saying he went without “lots of things” as a child, including “Sky TV”.

However, users online have pointed out that Sunak was born on May 12 1980, meaning he would have been just eight-years-old when Sky TV first launched. However, at this point, the service wasn’t even available fully in the UK. Sky TV began broadcasting with four channels in Europe on February 5 1989 with a future target of arriving in the UK after that. 

In an interview with ITV, Sunak was asked how he kept in touch with struggles people face with his personal wealth and what he went without as a child. Sunak claimed he “went without lots of things” and was pressed on what specifically went without before he nervously laughed.

He didn’t answer the question directly again at first before eventually provided the example of Sky TV even though it wasn’t available in the UK for most of his childhood, and only limited channels were available thereafter. 

He said: “Like lots of people, there’ll be all sorts of things I would have wanted as a kid that I couldn’t have, famously Sky TV, that was something that we never had growing up actually.”

As people face struggles from a cost of living crisis, his comments were widely mocked online. You can see some examples below. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sunak’s election campaign began after the PM called a surprise early election for July 4 at Downing Street last month (May 22).

It’s been hit by a series of embossments from the get-go, including his initial speech announcing a general election which has been widely mocked.

During that, the PM was soaked after delivering the speech in pouring rain and was drowned out by a sound system close by playing D:REAM’s ‘Things Can Only Get Better’, which was the election campaign song for Labour in 1997.

In another part of the election campaign, Sunak was photobombed by Lib Dem voters on a boat and over the last week, he’s faced intense criticism for leaving events to mark the anniversary of D-Day early to attend the above ITV interview.

Last month, the Conservative Party suffered historic losses in the UK local elections.

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