Oxford pals thought he wasn’t ruthless enough for politics... then he knifed Boris!
UNIVERSITY friends of Rishi Sunak yesterday told of his sober but sociable days at Oxford in the early 2000s.
They said the Lincoln College undergraduate could do nothing wrong – perhaps helped by the fact he was teetotal.
‘He was a really nice, affable guy,’ said one friend. ‘A good word to describe him would be “sweet”.
‘People were really surprised when he went into politics because he didn’t seem to be that sort of ruthless person that does that. He integrated very well with everyone.’
Mr Sunak, who helped engineer Boris Johnson’s downfall last week, was a member of the university’s Asian Society while studying politics, philosophy and economics.
‘You could tell he was from quite a posh background,’ said the friend. ‘Most young people in the Asian Society were second generation and not posh at all. Parents tended to be shop owners and most were educated in the state sector.
‘He didn’t just mix in the Asian Society though, he would have friends from all backgrounds and races.’
Mr Sunak graduated with a first-class degree in 2001 after studying under Michael Rosen.
The professor, who moved on to Harvard, has said of the former chancellor: ‘His fellow students certainly said, slightly lightheartedly, that he wanted to become Conservative prime minister.
‘But I don’t think anyone
took that too seriously – it was more of a joke. Rishi was a well- organised, clever young man, who was clearly ambitious and wanted to go into politics.
‘Perhaps I’m surprised that he’s got as far as he’s gone – as fast as he’s gone – but I’m certainly not surprised that he found himself in Parliament.
‘There are quite a lot of people who go into PPE with initial political engagements, not many of them end up as chancellor.’
Professor Rosen said Mr
Sunak, who was educated at Winchester College, seemed neither ‘posh’ nor aggressively political.
Other friends from university have told how the young Mr Sunak would ‘make a big thing’ of drinking only Coke on pub trips and at parties, describing him as a nerdy teetotaller ‘ just very clearly going into business’.
He is understood never even to have joined the university’s Conservative Association – becoming instead president of its investment society.