Britain's Sunak cites growing up without Sky TV as example of hardship

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, whose family is estimated to be wealthier than King Charles, said he went without "lots of things" as a child, including Sky TV, when asked if he was in touch with the struggles of ordinary people.

Sunak, the son of a doctor and a pharmacist, is the wealthiest prime minister in British history through a combination of his past career in financial services and the family fortune of his wife, whose father founded the Indian IT services company Infosys.

In an interview with ITV to be broadcast later on Wednesday, Sunak cited his parents' refusal to pay for the subscription channel as an example of having to "go without" because he said they were making sacrifices to pay for his education.

Asked to give a specific example of something he missed out on as a child, he said: "There'll be all sorts of things that I would've wanted as a kid that I couldn't have. Famously, Sky TV, so that was something that we never had growing up actually."

The opposition Labour Party has tried to use Sunak's personal wealth to accuse him of being out of touch with the problems faced by most people in Britain.

Sunak's family's net worth is estimated to be just over 650 million pounds ($828 million), putting him 245th on the Sunday Times 2024 "Rich List" of wealthiest Britons, ahead of King Charles in 258th place.

Labour earlier this year called Sunak's decision to agree to a 1,000 pound bet that his government would send asylum seekers to Rwanda distasteful and an amount most people could not afford to gamble.

Sunak's interview with ITV caused him embarrassment last week after he cut short his attendance at D-Day commemorations in northern France to record it.

The prime minister later apologised, saying it was "a mistake not to stay longer" after opposition parties called it a dereliction of duty.

($1 = 0.7842 pounds)

(Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Christina Fincher)