LONDON (Reuters) – British finance minister Rishi Sunak said on Friday he did not have a desire to be the next prime minister but admitted that he was tired because he had been working around the clock as he grapples with the coronavirus crisis.
When told by a Times Radio reporter that he looked pretty tired and asked if the crisis had dampened his desire to be Britain’s next prime minister, Sunak chuckled and said: “Oh gosh, I don’t have that desire.”
After spending hundreds of billions of pounds on allying the economic chaos triggered by the coronavirus crisis, there has been widespread speculation that Sunak could one day replace his boss, Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“I am tired,” Sunak, 40, said, adding that he had not seen his family much due to the crisis and had been forced to miss gym sessions.
“I am sorry I am looking tired so I will take that as an instruction to try and revitalise myself over the coming weekend to be a bit more bright and bushy eyed next week,” he said.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton; editing by Costas Pitas)
