In a stunning moment for diversity in British politics, Rishi Sunak became Britain’s first Prime Minister to have attended Lincoln College, Oxford on Tuesday. “People said it couldn’t be done, but here I am,” said Sunak, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer who matriculated into Lincoln in 1998 and graduated in 2001 with a first in PPE.
“This is an incredible achievement,” said the current Master of Lincoln College, “to think that a college which was only ranked third in the Norrington Table in 2021 could send an alumnus to No. 10. It really proves that in this country you can achieve anything if you work hard enough.”
Sunak, who is worth around £730 million through his former career in finance and his marriage to heiress Akshata Murty, has had to overcome the barriers placed before him by politicians who attended Christ Church or Merton in order to become the leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party. “I believe that anyone who attended Oxford, even those who studied at St. Peter’s or Lady Margaret Hall can now dream of becoming Prime Minister. I hope I am an inspiration to Oxford graduates everywhere,” said Sunak.
The new Prime Minister met with King Charles III on Tuesday to receive his invitation to form a government, the first Lincoln graduate to have been granted such an honour. “It was not lost on me,” said Sunak of the meeting, “that history was being made at that moment. Needless to say I was thinking of all those Lincoln graduates who had to live and die without becoming Prime Minister.” Sunak has pledged that, despite having attended Lincoln, he will be a Prime Minister for members of all colleges, and, presumably, other Britons as well.
Lincoln graduate Sunak will also be the first non-white person to become Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
