Of course, the war of words links directly to questions over which team has the best credentials to run the country and turn the economy around at the July 4 election, with inflation still not down to desired levels and interest rates at their highest in 15 years.
But it’s being spun as which former banker has the worst resumé.
Labour’s bubble-bath blockbuster
In one such salvo, the opposition Labour Party published a video in the style of dramedy movie “The Big Short.” The blockbuster film sets out in an amusing style how the 2008 financial crash happened, and features actor Margot Robbie explaining the stock market with a flute of champagne in a bubble bath.
Labour replaced Robbie with British comedian Jon Richardson and the champagne with a beer in its campaign video, but the message remains on point: Sunak’s roles before entering government may seem too complicated to understand, but once you get to the bottom of it, he made a lot of money on a financial bet while others suffered.
The party argues that Sunak personally profited from the sale of Dutch bank ABN Amro to the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) in 2007, due to his role as a partner at hedge fund the Children’s Investment Fund which allowed him to cash in on the ABN Amro sale. The ill-judged acquisition led to the then-Labour government having to bail out RBS a year later to stop it going bust.
At the time, the takeover was described as “an extremely risky deal” by the Financial Services Authority, which said it was a major factor in markets losing confidence in RBS.
