Sunak and seat belt

Saturday 21st January, 2023

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is reported to have apologised for unbuckling his seat belt to film a social media video while being driven in north-west England recently. The police are said to be looking into the incident, which has made Sunak draw a lot of flak from his political opponents as well as some members of the British public.

Sunak’s apology and police reaction are viewed, in some quarters, as proof that not even the British Prime Minister is above the law. Some social media activists in this country have said that other government leaders, especially those in the countries where a culture of impunity prevails, should emulate PM Sunak. One cannot but agree with them.

It is only natural that Sri Lankans, fed up with their so-called leaders, who blatantly violate the law of the land with impunity, are full of praise for the British PM, who has actually behaved in an exemplary manner without trotting out lame excuses. But it may be argued that PM Sunak has owned up to what he has called his ‘error of judgement’ because the offence concerned is only a minor one carrying a fine of 100 pounds, which could be enhanced to 500 pounds in case of the offender being hauled up before court. Would he have done likewise if he had happened to commit something far more serious, say a criminal offence?

One may recall that in 2000, the then British PM Tony Blair earned encomia when his wife Cherie readily paid a fine for travelling in a train without a ticket. She apologised for her carelessness. It was claimed that he and his wife had set an example to the leaders in the Global South, where political leaders and their kith and kin are ‘more equal than others’ before the law. But the Blairs sullied their reputation subsequently; they did everything in their power to conceal Cherie’s connections with a fraudster, who was jailed for an illegal loan scheme. Worse, Blair defended himself even after being exposed for having had an intelligence dossier falsified to justify the invasion of Iraq, in 2003. He and US President George W. Bush sought to justify the Iraq war on the grounds that Saddam Hussein had acquired weapons of mass destruction, which, they said, posed a threat to global peace, but their much-publicised claim was later found to be false. It has been revealed that the intelligence reports they furnished in support of their decision to invade Iraq were fabricated, and countless war crimes were committed during the illegal invasion of Iraq, where civilians including hundreds of thousands of children perished due to the western military operations and sanctions.

Blair has got away with his war crimes. So has Bush. Curiously, the UK, which ‘exports’ democracy to other countries, and pontificates about the virtues of the rule of law, justice and fair play, has done nothing to hold Blair to account despite the publication of the damning Chilcot report, which has categorically stated, inter alia, that at the time of the 2003 invasion, Saddam Hussein ‘posed no imminent threat’.

PM Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, who is said to be richer than royalty, was once embroiled in a tax controversy. Sunak, who was the Chancellor to the Exchequer at the time and Akshata have managed to stem the tide of stinging headlines in the British press, but the issue is far from over, and they are living under the microscope. What the media will come out with against them next remains to be seen. It is too early to say if PM Sunak is a true respecter of the law. A political leader is best judged after his or her retirement.