What is Rishi Sunak's height?

After another chaotic week in UK politics, Rishi Sunak looks set to become the next prime minister following Liz Truss's resignation and Boris Johnson deciding not to run in the leadership contest.

Sunak has the backing of well over 100 MPs and if his opponent Penny Mordaunt cannot find the support then Sunak will be replacing Truss inside number 10.

In times of great turmoil and political interest Twitter did what it does best and turned its attention to matters much smaller: Rishi Sunak's height.

One said, "I don’t care about politics at all now, but I was fascinated to learn that Rishi Sunak is really a lot shorter than I think we’ve all assumed as a nation."

While another joked: "Rishi Sunak is short. Which is fine. It is literally fine. There is no height requirement for prime minister. BUT I think if you're paying a PR firm to manipulate photos to make you look taller, you're too insecure to be PM."

Well now, a study by physiologists at the University of Groningen suggests height can determine a politician’s prospects on election day. Their research explored US presidential elections, finding that taller candidates received more votes two-thirds of the time.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

Getty Images

So, how tall is the former chancellor?

Sunak is 170cm (5ft 6 inches tall).

According to the Office of National Statistics, this makes him 5cm shorter than the average man in the United Kingdom. He is approximately 4 inches shorter than Boris Johnson and 3 inches shorter than deputy prime minister Dominic Raab who is 5ft 9 inches.

Should he ever be the next prime minister, he would be the shortest male PM since Winston Churchill.

Getty Images

Supporters of his Tory leadership rivals have targeted Sunak's campaign with the first round of the vote looming.

He faced claims from supporters of rival Liz Truss that he implemented “economically damaging” policies and that his campaign has engaged in “dirty tricks” to manipulate the leadership contest.

Brexit opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg and Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, high-profile backers of Truss, led the criticism of Sunak’s campaign.

Rees-Mogg said Truss, the Foreign Secretary, is "fiscally on the right side of the argument", unlike Sunak.

He told Sky News Truss "opposed the endless tax rises of the former chancellor, which I think have been economically damaging, I also was opposed to (them) in Cabinet".

"I think that’s important, that you have somebody who’s fiscally on the right side of the argument, who doesn’t believe that higher taxation is the right answer to every question," he said.

He also said Truss – who voted Remain in the 2016 European Union referendum – is more willing to take advantage of Brexit than Leave-voting Sunak.

Rees-Mogg claimed she is more "supportive about getting rid of the supremacy of EU law, and having a sunset on EU law" than Sunak’s Treasury.

"I think you have to judge people by what they do currently," he added.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.