Richer than the King Voters debate if Rishi Sunak is too wealthy to be PM

If Rishi Sunak becomes prime minister, it will be first time in history the occupants of 10 Downing Street will be richer than the monarch in Buckingham Palace - and at a time when millions of Britons are struggling with a cost of living crisis. Sunak and his wife, Akshata Murty, have a combined fortune of approximately £730m - roughly double the estimated.£300m-£350m of King Charles II and Camilla, the Queen Consort.

- Rupert Neate

Sunak, who earlier this year became the first frontline politician to be included in the Sunday Times rich list of the UK's wealthiest people, will also almost rival the King in terms of numbers of official residences.

The former chancellor, who is vying with Boris Johnson and Penny Mordaunt to become the leader of the Conservative party and prime minister, owns a portfolio of four properties spread across the world and valued at more than £15m.

Sunak, his wife, and two daughters, Krishna and Anoushka, spend most of the week at their five-bedroom mews house in Kensington, which is estimated to be worth more than £7m.

At the weekends they retreat to a grade II-listed Georgian manor house in the picturesque village of Kirby Sigston in his Richmond constituency in North Yorkshire.

The house, which the couple bought for £1.5m before he was first elected MP in 2015, is now worth more than £2m and has been transformed into something of a wellness retreat with a £400,000 indoor swimming pool, gym, yoga studio, hot tub and tennis court.

Soaring energy costs mean it could cost more than £14,000-a-year to heat the 12-metre by 5-metre pool - almost six times the average family's energy bill.

That fortune and Sunak's clumsiness in flaunting it - has some people asking if he is too rich to understand the day-to-day struggles of voters. Ashley Blakely, a waitress and coordinator of the nearby Darlington People's Assembly, said it aggravated her that Sunak had "so much money to throw thousands on heating his pool and having parties when there are single parents, pensioners and working families who will freeze this winter".