As a staunch supporter of Truss – the pair entered parliament together in 2010 – Kwarteng is likely to have a much smoother relationship with his Downing Street colleague than Boris Johnson has with Sunak. The two are already neighbors after Kwarteng moved into the same Greenwich street as Truss earlier this year. His rise, however, comes amid a historic economic storm with the worst outlook outside of the Covid pandemic in decades. The country is on the brink of a long-term recession with inflation at its highest rate in 40 years and the NHS bracing for a winter crisis. An ideological soul mate of Truss from the free-market right, the Surrey MP is a relative latecomer to cabinet posts – his first junior role came in late 2018 – but has risen rapidly under Johnson to become a key member of his government. Born in east London to parents who emigrated from Ghana as students in the 1960s, he was educated at Eton and then Cambridge, where he completed his PhD on a 17th-century crisis in English silver coinage. A Kennedy Fellowship at Harvard followed, before working in finance at JP Morgan and Odey Asset Management, run by pro-Brexit investor Crispin Odey. Tall and imposing at 6ft 4in, with a loud belly laugh that can be heard from other floors in his Whitehall office, he won a Newcastle scholarship while at Eton – the school’s most prestigious award for achieving the highest marks in a a week-long special examination – a distinction shared with Johnson, among other conservative politicians. Since entering parliament, Kwarteng has been a staunch supporter of Truss economics and was, along with his new boss, among the co-authors of Britannia Unchained, a 2012 collection of essays advocating a small-state United Kingdom. The controversial libertarian pamphlet railed against a “bloated state, high taxes and over-regulation” – allegations that Truss made it a cornerstone of her Tory leadership campaign, neglecting her party’s 12 years in power. They will no doubt reflect Kwarteng’s thinking as chancellor, too. However, measures to realize their vision may be difficult to implement in practice. Ideology aside, Kwarteng prides himself on “Making Shit Happen” – with the letters MSH scrawled on the board in his Whitehall office, above a list of his favorite achievements in government – including state support for industry. There are already signs of possible moderation, with Kwarteng writing as a Truss emissary in the Financial Times this week to “reassure” City investors that any tax cuts would be “fiscally responsible” – code for calming betting financial markets that Trusonomics unchained could crush the pound. . Although a free-market entrepreneur by nature, his first week as chancellor will likely include some of the most far-reaching interventions in the economy by any government since the 1970s, with a controversial price freeze on energy markets and a bailout package for the British struggling worth up to £100bn. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. It would follow a pattern, with Kwarteng last year being called “libertarian in rhetoric but social democratic in delivery” by the free-market Institute for Economic Affairs for his interventionist stance as business secretary. However, his promotion to the most powerful government role behind the prime minister – and with a hand-in-hand relationship with his Downing Street ally – could give Kwarteng more scope to apply his credentials as a champion of liberal economics. Along with the reassuring message to City investors in the FT, Kwarteng issued a warning shot that redistributing the proceeds of economic growth – helping rich and poor alike benefit from rising prosperity – would take a distinct back seat under a Truss government. “We will get a superstate to spark a competitive market economy. [That’s] not particularly Tory,” says Ryan Shorthouse, the chief executive of Bright Blue, a liberal Tory think tank. “But with big tax cuts for high earners and big corporations, [it’s] nor particularly socially democratic.”
