Kwasi Kwarteng: the low-tax Tory frontrunner for next chancellor
There are few ministers who clashed more with Rishi Sunak during his time in office than Kwasi Kwarteng, from windfall taxes to net zero. Now the business secretary is among those touted to have a turn in Number 11.
Kwarteng has been a longtime loyal supporter of Liz Truss, making discreet inquiries with MPs about support for her potential leadership bid for many months. That dedication and his relative seniority has placed him as a frontrunner alongside Thérèse Coffey, the work and pensions secretary, and Sajid Javid – who briefly held the job before.
But it is quickly becoming a poisoned chalice. The next chancellor has an in-tray which contains the worst outlook for the economy since the 2008 banking crash, a lengthy recession, eye-watering inflation and rising interest rates, potential mass defaults on energy bills and an NHS going into a winter crisis.
Sunak began his own political career with an entrenched small state ideology, which was steamrollered in his first weeks in the job by the pandemic and the need to introduce the unprecedented furlough scheme.
Kwarteng would enter the Treasury if appointed as a free marketeer and is likely to find his beliefs will face extraordinary challenges from the economic headwinds.
Elected in 2010, Kwarteng used his maiden speech in parliament to rail against the former Labour government and the 2008 crash, saying: “I find it staggering that Labour Members have not had the good grace to come to the House to apologise and to show some recognition of the very real problems that we face and the solutions that we need to get out of this situation.”
He was born in east London, to middle class Ghanian-born parents, and won a scholarship to Eton. His interview at Trinity College, Cambridge,
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