Rishi Sunak’s top as he launches Tory manifesto subsequent to heels-wearing spouse

Much has been made of Rishi Sunak’s disastrous general election campaign – the turning tail and fleeing Normandy before the D-Day commemoration events were finished, being mocked for his adding up abilities by Keir Starmer in the first leaders’ debate, being photographed with Mickey Mouse ears behind him while denouncing Mickey Mouse university degrees…

It’s fair to say this year’s election campaign might go down in history as the most gaffe-prone yet. But we all know politics is about style over substance, and one of the most pressing questions as Sunak launches the Tory’s manifesto this morning is… how tall is he, actually?

Pictured next to his billionaire heiress wife Akshata Murty in Silverstone racing circuit, Sunak wore chunky black patent leather shoes with a tapered slim-fit black suit, smart white shirt and a blue tie.

But could those shoes have concealed a hidden block to boost his height, as American right-winger Ron DeSantis is rumoured to do? Hmm…

How tall is Rishi Sunak?

The pint-sized Prime Minister stands at 1.7 metres – that’s 170cm, or a hair’s breadth over 5 feet 6 inches in old money.

His wife Akshata is just a smidge shorter at 162cm, or 5ft 4in, although she wore a pair of lilac block heels for the Tory manifesto launch.

She often wears heels in public when appearing with her husband, and previously emphatically stated she would never ditch the fancy footwear.

“Oh no, I love a pair of heels,” she told Grazia magazine in March.

It’s not the first time the Prime Minister’s height has been discussed. In 2021, when Chancellor, he was widely mocked for carefully positioning himself at the top of the stairs in No11 for a Budget photocall, which made him look like he was floating amid his Treasury team.

The previous year he’d been snapped in the middle of a row with his team dwarfing him.

Keir Starmer, meanwhile, has compared the Tory’s 2024 manifesto to Jeremy Corbyn’s plan in 2019.

He added: “It’s hopeless – that’s why I say it’s a Jeremy Corbyn-style manifesto, which is load everything into the wheelbarrow, don’t provide the funding and hope that nobody notices. And the money isn’t there. It is a recipe for five more years of chaos.”

“If you look at the plans, if you look at the election campaign so far every day you’ve had a new commitment from the Tories which is unfunded and you’ve had some of the funding streams being spent several times over.

“So tax avoidance, they’ve used for at least four different propositions without explaining why, one, they haven’t been collecting it for the last 14 years. If this tax avoidance money was there, why have they not been collected? Secondly, they say they’re going to change the position on tax avoidance without investing any money or changing anything. So they’re just going to hope it’s suddenly going to stop.”

He added that “the money’s not there” for the Tories’ flagship manifesto pledge to cut National Insurance by a further 2p. Asked whether his party, if elected, would match the promise, the Labour leader told broadcasters on a visit to a school in Middlesbrough: “The money’s not there for the Tories’ desperation. And what they’re producing is a recipe for five more years of chaos.

“I think that’s why it’s so important that we see this election as a choice, because we can’t go on like this.”