Right so Rishi Sunak, he’s a wealthy chap, worth some £730m himself, but that’s a drop in the ocean compared to the family he married into, his wife, Akshata Murthy being the daughter of multi-billionaire Narayana Murthy, who is according to Forbes, the 41st richest man in India. His wealth was built on a tech company, Infosys, which provides global IT services. Rishi Sunak’s wife has a 0.91% stake in the company, which in and of itself is almost equal to Sunak’s wealth at some £690m, but of course she gets payouts from her shares amounting to some £11.5m annually. There was uproar back in March of this year when much of this came out, along with the fact that despite being the wife of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and having had children and built a life together here in this country, that she still held non dom status and therefore avoided paying any tax on such an income. She was at the time this all came out reported to be wealthier than the Queen. Her 0.91% stake in Infosys, back in March incidentally was reported as £490m, so the company has done extremely well in what has been a difficult year and so perhaps she’ll be looking at a bigger than ever annual payout when next it comes. Why does any of this matter though Damo, it’s old news, Rishi’s rich, so is his missus, tell us something we don’t know. Well, Infosys, along with Rishi’s father in law have rather close links to Russia and to Mad Vlad himself. Infosys have worked with sanctioned Russian bank Alfa, Putin has visited Infosys personally in the past and Narayana Murthy had only been too happy to press the flesh with him on camera. Putin got the grand tour, he saw the labs, the technical centres, he signed the visitors book saying ‘I congratulate you on all your achievements and wish you all future success.’
Part of that success of course being a global tech company is you’ll have centres and offices all over the world, and things got uncomfortable for Sunak, when it was discovered one such office was, somewhat unsurprisingly, in Russia. He denied any knowledge of the goings on in Infosys at the time, which looked absolutely f**king ridiculous, when he was in charge of the UK economy, yet apparently didn’t know what was coming in to his own household and had the same week urged companies not to invest in Russia in case it benefitted Putin, at war with Ukraine as he was and still is. It was a bit rich of Rishi to say that though, as it then came out, thanks to a Ukrainian politician pointing it out ironically, that Sunak’s family may be profiting from ‘blood money’ being made in Russia thanks to his wife’s stake in a company that was at least partly based out of Russia and the whole non dom thing came out too, Sunak’s US Green Card affair and all that. All rather awkward. Well, the net result was that Infosys, despite being an Indian Company and not under UK jurisdiction in any way, did agree to pull out of Russia as the global news fallout wasn’t a good look and Akshata Murthy agreed to pay UK Tax on her dividends from the company. That was eight months ago. Today, and weirdly I pondered this on another video the other week, it’s been confirmed that Infosys are still operating out of Moscow. Nothing has apparently changed at all. That might not be all that surprising. It is an Indian company. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is close to Putin, where other countries have reduced or ended supplies of Russian oil over the war in Ukraine, India has increased it, so there will almost certainly have been no home pressure for Infosys to do anything about their Russian operations, it’s just made life awkward for Sunak. Well now he’s the Prime Minister and we’re back to asking questions about Infosys, because surely we’re justified in asking what exactly has changed since March? Is Murthy now paying tax on her income? Why is the Prime Minister and his family still profiting from Russian business dealings, because an annual payout from a global company that part operates in Russia – you can’t differentiate what part of your dividend might be Russian made. Even if they claimed otherwise, even if they did somehow separate that element out, they are still benefitting from a company, that operates in Putin’s Russia wherever that money gets made. If we’re really all about supporting Ukraine, as our politicians, the Tories particularly, repeatedly bleat, then is it time to sanction the Sunak’s? Infosys have a base of operations here in the UK too, should they not be boycotted or ordered out of the country in the name of our ardent solidarity with Ukraine? Where are the Tory MP’s calling for this? This is a company that has had business dealings right at the heart of government though, being on a Home Office preferred list, so it can get government contracts without them having to be put out for tender. We have a say over that don’t we? Surely we can end that can’t we, if we’re really all about yay Ukraine and boo Russia? Perhaps Sunak’s wife should sell her stake in Infosys so as not to benefit from this ‘blood money’ as that Ukrainian politician put it anymore? It’s not like she doesn’t have other business interests here, not counting the ones that have failed? If she won’t do that, surely Sunak must step down then, because the UK cannot be led by somebody benefitting from Russian profits?
The fact is the Sunak’s don’t need this money. They are ridiculously wealthy already, so if they don’t do something about this, then frankly their own greed is more important than the hardship faced by others affected by that war, more important than all their talk of supporting Ukraine, more important than opposing Putin and more important than the UK reputation on the global stage when any talk from him on such matters will stink of hypocrisy to everyone listening.