On Friday the former prime minister and self-confessed “total coke addict” Rishi Sunak announced two new, predictably depressing, roles. The MP for Richmond and Northallerton in North Yorkshire has taken up advisory roles with Microsoft and mega AI firm Anthropic.
Sunak said he was “delighted” to be working “with two of the world’s leading tech firms”, and planned to donate his earnings to a charity he founded.
The Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) has told the 5ft 6in MP that he must not lobby on behalf of either company. Sunak previously announced he will act as a paid adviser to Goldman Sachs, where he previously worked between 2001 and 2004.
Despite Sunak’s promise at his final Prime Minister’s Questions that he would spend more time in his constituency, which he called “the greatest place on Earth”, speculation in Tory circles is turning to who might replace him and his 12,185-vote majority.
The Hitch hears that Ben Houchen, the Tory Tees Valley mayor, has been “spending a lot of time recently in North Yorkshire”. It wouldn’t be much of a jump from Teesside to Yorkshire for Houchen, who is known to be frustrated with the direction of the Conservative Party under its present leadership. If he did want to stand, Houchen would have to give up his peerage. Perhaps Sunak could soften that blow by giving the mayor a mates’-rates rental price for his £2m mansion in the constituency.
[Further reading: Thatcher-land]
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