Rishi Sunak’s Vacation: Taylor Swift and Disneyland. (The Rest Is a Secret.)

Just final 12 months, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s political fortunes virtually collapsed over his rich spouse’s privileged tax standing in Britain. He was additionally criticized for holding a inexperienced card, which allowed him to reside and work within the United States, sowing suspicions that his coronary heart lay in California, the place he started his profession and the place he met his spouse at enterprise college.

Yet final week, when Mr. Sunak and his household spent a 10-day trip at their multimillion-dollar penthouse condo in Santa Monica, Calif., there was scarcely a peep about it within the British papers.

The distinction, analysts mentioned, attests each to evolving views of Mr. Sunak, a onetime hedge fund supervisor who turned prime minister final October, and to Downing Street’s shrewd media administration of the Sunak household’s American trip.

The household stayed largely underneath the radar, rising just for a fastidiously staged picture alternative at an amusement park on the Santa Monica Pier, taking part in video games on what was Mr. Sunak’s first trip in practically 4 years. He and his spouse, Akshata Murty, additionally took their two younger daughters, Krishna and Anoushka, to Disneyland, the place, he mentioned, he was excited to strive a “Star Wars”-themed journey.

The remainder of the prime minister’s actions have been largely the topic of social media rumour. He was noticed at a 7 a.m. SoulCycle class by a lady who posted on TikTok that he should be a “Swiftie,” for the reason that class labored out to Taylor Swift’s music. Further proof for that got here after reviews that Mr. Sunak had caught a present by Ms. Swift, whose Eras tour rolled via Los Angeles whereas he was there.

Downing Street declined to verify whether or not he was on the live performance, in line with its coverage of not commenting on each element of his trip. That gave Mr. Sunak a cloak of privateness unknown to American presidents, whose makes an attempt at R & R are tediously documented by a trailing pool of reporters and photographers.

In Britain, holidays are sometimes a cause to mock British leaders. Tony Blair famously bought free stays at a villa in Sardinia as a visitor of Silvio Berlusconi and on the Miami Beach mansion of the Bee Gees singer Robin Gibb. Boris Johnson made a misbegotten try at tenting within the Scottish Highlands, attracting flak for pitching a tent in a farmer’s subject with out permission and abandoning trash.

Mr. Sunak’s selection of trip vacation spot might properly have resurrected awkward questions on his wealth and American connections. Mr. Sunak and Ms. Murty met whereas graduate college students at Stanford University, and he labored at a hedge fund in California earlier than returning to Britain to enter politics.

Mr. Sunak held a inexperienced card till 2021, after he turned chancellor of the Exchequer, the highest-ranking finance put up within the British authorities. Political analysts speculated that if his ambitions to change into prime minister had been thwarted, he and his spouse would have decamped for the West Coast, which they regard as a second dwelling. Comparable residences at their seaside constructing in Santa Monica are valued at greater than $7 million.

Ms. Murty, whose father is the Indian know-how billionaire Narayana Murthy, had been claiming “non-domiciled” standing in Britain, which saved her hundreds of thousands of kilos a 12 months in taxes on dividends from shares in her father’s firm, Infosys. Last 12 months, when the revelations threatened to torpedo her husband’s political profession, she introduced that she would start paying taxes in Britain on her abroad revenue.

Little of this, nevertheless, resurfaced within the British papers. Part of that is likely to be due to Downing Street’s media administration. The photographs of the prime minister and his household confirmed them strolling alongside the pier with a Ferris wheel and a hoop toss stall as a backdrop — the type of average-family trip pictures extra redolent of English seaside resorts like Brighton or Bournemouth than of Beverly Hills or Brentwood.

There was no proof that Mr. Sunak socialized with Hollywood celebrities or Silicon Valley moguls throughout his time there. And the household’s different outings — the tour to Disneyland and the rumored Taylor Swift live performance — put them in the identical firm as 1000’s of households with younger daughters.

Downing Street had appeared delicate to the dangers of a visit to the United States. It declined to verify Mr. Sunak’s vacation spot till the morning earlier than he left, when he instructed a radio present that California “is where I met my wife, so it’s very special to us,” including, “the kids are very excited because I’m taking them to Disneyland.”

Paradoxically, Mr. Sunak’s affluence may need helped fairly than harm him: Unlike a few of his predecessors, who have been invited by well-heeled businesspeople or celebrities, he virtually definitely paid his personal means.

“Boris and Blair got publicity for their evident freeloading, but no one thinks Sunak needs to do that,” mentioned Jill Rutter, a former civil servant who’s now a senior analysis fellow at UK in a Changing Europe, a suppose tank in London.

“Generally,” she added, “we think they should have a chance to relax with their kids.”