'Excruciating': Rishi Sunak faces rebuke for asking a homeless man if he works in business

Christmas is a time in the UK when people volunteer to go and help in soup kitchens around the country. Soup kitchens are places where homeless people go to for dinner. Homelessness is a significant problem in the UK. One can always find people outside a Yves Saint Laurent showroom, sleeping on the wet frosty footpath amidst the cold harsh wind. However, during Christman, the homeless catch the attention of people more than they do during other times. Hence there is a tradition of helping the homeless during Christmas in the UK. 

UK PM Rishi Sunak this year decided to take part in this tradition by serving breakfast at a homeless shelter in London. Even before Rishi Sunak became the UK PM, he was the wealthiest parliamentarian, nicknamed the "Maharaja of Yorkshire", which is where the constituency he represents, Richmond, is located. Some reports suggest he is wealthier than the King of England.  As the occupant of 10 Downing Street, he is the most powerful man in British isles, and one of the most powerful men in Europe, if not the most powerful. As he served breakfast, he came face to face with a homeless person, arguably a group of people with the least amount of power in the society. 

UK PM interacts with a homeless person 

The interaction between Britain's most powerful man and one of the most vulnerable men made it to the front page of most British tabloids the next day. As the homeless man stood in front of the British PM, Rishi Sunak, asked him "do you work in business?", whilst handing him a plate of breakfast. “No, I’m homeless. I’m actually a homeless person,” the man responded, adding that he is interested in business and finance. The British PM replied by saying he used to work in finance, and the homeless person uttered "I know". Rishi Sunak further asked the man if he would like to get into finance, to which the man replied that he wouldn't mind. “But, I don’t know, I’d like to get through Christmas first," he said. 

Different reactions to the interaction 

The UK opposition said that the interaction showcased how detached Rishi Sunak is from reality. The Labour party has often argued that how can Rishi Sunak govern UK effectively when he doesn't even know what are the daily challenges an average Brit or a poor Brit has to face. A social media user remarked that "there is something really cruel about showing one of the richest, most powerful men in Britain to one of the poorest, powerless men in Britain," to which another user replied "why is it cruel? They are two people interacting with each other... it is only cruel if you value money and status so much you can't see they are equal". The tradition of the privileged serving the poor goes back quite some time and it is present in many societies. The term Noblesse oblige is often used to describe this tradition, which takes different forms in different societies.