'Blair had money’ Vine caller argues hypocrisy in claims Rishi’s too rich to be chancellor

After explaining to Channel 5 viewers the chancellor was reportedly in the top 0.0001 percent of the country’s population in terms of his wealth, Jeremy Vine asked if Sunak could be the wrong person for the job of chancellor as he might “lack empathy” with those struggling financially having never had to worry about money himself. One caller phoned in and pointed out that opposition MPs and Prime Ministers were also rich and noted Tony Blair as an example.

As Christine called Vine, he pointed towards the board which contained workings out that Sunak was in such a small group of wealth and asked her: “So this doesn’t worry, you, Christine?”  

The viewer responded: “No, personally I think the man is trying to do a good job.

“And I do not think this man should be judged by his bank balance. That’s number one.

“I think he’s been made a target by the media and obviously, television’s not going to help.

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She asked: “If he was a pauper would we mock him then and say he wasn’t good enough because he hasn’t got money to do the job?”

“I’m going to persist with this,” Vine admitted, adding: “It’s whether the really, really, really rich lack empathy, particularly if they’ve always been landed.”

“No, no we can’t generalise on this,” Christine hit back, explaining: “I knew a millionaire once.

“And I used to drive in his Rolls Royce, I did all his photo work, and he said to me one day, his father said to him when he was a little boy, ‘see that little boy over there sat on the bench?’

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“‘He’s no different to you, remember that’, and I thought that was wonderful.

“He asked him to treat that little boy as he would any other little boy that came from a very, very rich family.”

“Yeah, good point and we’re all human,” Vine replied. “We’ve got a lot of DNA in common.”

It comes as the panel discussed whether Sunak could fully grasp the struggle of those with financial difficulties.

They also pointed out the chancellor had donated more than £100,000 to his former boarding school.

Breaking down how much money Sunak is worth, Vine remarked: “If you go to 0.0001 percent of the population, you are at about 70 people in the country, right?

“Getting to this is really interesting – that makes to me because have you ever met anyone who’s worth £600 million?”

Jeremy Vine airs weekdays at 9.15am on Channel 5.

source: express.co.uk