london uk chancellor rishi sunak on sunday spoke out about the racist abuse he faced as a child growing up in britain but stressed that the country has made enormous progress over timethe indianorigin finance minister who was born in the uk revealed that the abuse felt far worse when it occurred in the presence of his younger siblings as he was asked to comment on another set of farright and antiracism protests in london over the weekendits the sort of thing thats happening on your own its difficult enough but when i had my younger brother and sister with me at the time it was particularly upsetting i wanted to protect them from it he told sky news when asked about his experience of racist abusethey may just be words but they sting in a way that other things dont there is something about that racist abuse that cuts to your core he saidthe minister stressed that violent clashes of the kind seen during some protests in london on saturday were both shocking and disgusting and those responsible should face tough legal consequenceshe said this has always been an open and tolerant country and what we saw yesterday was not that there will always be a small minority who maintain prejudice and indeed are racist but that is not overall the description i would ascribe to our countryi think theres been enormous progress that our country and our society has made if i think back to the time when my grandparents first arrived when i was growing upsunak who is leading the uks economic response to the coronavirus pandemic went on to encourage people to support the reopening of the countrys high streets from monday when nonessential retail stores are allowed to reopen under covidsecure conditions the minister indicated that the government was reviewing the current twometre social distance norm in order to assist businesses furtherpeople need to have the confidence that its safe and i can give that assurance he said in reference to the next phase of the easing of the uks lockdown from mondaythe pm has put in place a comprehensive review of the twometre rule we keep everything under review i can very much understand the positive impact it will have on businesses in being able to open he saidthe senior cabinet minister once again admitted hardship in store as steps unfold towards restarting the economy after months of lockdown imposed in the wake of the deadly virus which has claimed over 41000 lives in the uki think primarily we need to reopen our economy safely and slowly and thats the most important thing to try and safeguard as many of those jobs as possible but then as i look forward acknowledge that there is going to be hardship ahead people are going to lose their jobs he saidi want to make sure that we have the degree of support for them whether its skills or other support to help them get back into work