- Wednesday, March 05, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
British prime minister Rishi Sunak is facing a massive backlash on social media for asking a homeless person whether he “works in business”.
The incident took place on Friday (23) when Sunak went to a homeless shelter in London. He got into a brief chat with the homeless man called Dean while serving food and a video of it went viral on social media and reactions soon poured in, accusing the prime minister of being out of touch with reality.
In the clip, Sunak was seen first asking Dean how he was doing, to which the man said he was hungry.
Seconds later, the Conservative leader asked whether Dean works in business. To this, the man said, “No, I’m homeless. I’m actually a homeless person.”
Rishi Sunak is so out of touch.
Working for the PR points in a homeless shelter, his original question to a homeless person is “Do you have a business?”
(which he switches at the last minute to “Do you work in a business?”)
— Tim Burgess (@Tim_Burgess) December 24, 2022
The caption of the video said, “Rishi Sunak is so out of touch. Working for the PR points in a homeless shelter, his original question to a homeless person is “Do you have a business?” (which he switches at the last minute to “Do you work in a business?”)”
Critics soon targeted Sunak, 42, who has the reputation of not being in touch with the “common people”. In a BBC documentary in 2001, Sunak, who was 21 then, had said that he had friends who are aristocrats and upper class and after also adding working class, he had corrected himself saying “well, not working class”.
The man famously wears £450 Prada suede shoes and bespoke £3,500 Henry Herbert suits. He and his tech heiress wife, Akshata Murty, daughter of Indian software entrepreneur Narayana Murthy, are worth an estimated £730 million.
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner called the exchange between the PM and the homeless man as excruciating, and Labour parliamentarian Stella Creasy said, “Watching this I am concerned that the prime minister thinks homeless means ‘doesn’t have a country pile at the moment’.”
The shadow levelling up secretary, Lisa Nandy, said, “How much more out of touch could this prime minister be?”
“Rishi Sunak is so out of touch. Working for the PR points in a homeless shelter, his original question to a homeless person is “Do you have a business?” (which he switches at the last minute to “Do you work in a business?”)” the caption of the Twitter post read.
Several Twitter users were also less sympathetic and slammed the prime minister saying he showed little compassion for a struggling man.
“British Prime Minister’s awful visit to a soup kitchen. How can people “serve” their fellow man when they can’t even relate to their lives,” wrote one user.
“Beyond parody,” said another.
A third user said, “In which @RishiSunak fails to show any curiosity or compassion about a homeless man, and instead talks about his own career in the City. Very strange indeed!”
Another one added, “Just Rishi Sunak at a homeless shelter trying to work out a what type of business being homeless is.”
However, The Guardian defended Sunak saying the premier had not lacked compassion while speaking with the man and rather was trying to know whether he could “like to get into” something by discussing his background in the finance industry.
“I wouldn’t mind, but I don’t know, I’d like to get through Christmas first,” the man told Sunak.
He also said that he hoped a charity would find him some temporary accommodation so he was not on the street for Christmas.
Backing the PM, a piece in The Guardian said, “What did Sunak say that was so wrong? He was chatty, engaged and responded to Dean’s interest in business by talking about his own experience. Why shouldn’t Dean have been in business or had a business and fallen on hard times? Plenty of business people have, and are doing so at an accelerating rate.”
