LONDON, Sept. 6, 2022 — Kwasi Kwarteng, a long-time ally and political soulmate of new prime minister Liz Truss, has been named as the UK’s next chancellor.
He takes over at a critical time for the UK economy, with millions looking to him for help with soaring winter energy bills.
The decisions he makes in the coming days and weeks will have a huge impact on the country’s future prospects, as well as on the Conservative Party’s prospects of retaining power.
He will not be short of support from his new Downing Street neighbour. One friend told the Times Mr Kwarteng and Ms Truss were a bit like “Batman and Robin”, adding: “They are both slight social misfits, amiable geeks, and have strong views which are in tune with each other.”
Nor is he likely to be accused of lacking intellectual firepower or self-confidence. An Old Etonian, who became the first black Conservative cabinet minister in 2021, he has a double first from Cambridge University and a PhD in economic history. He is also a past winner of notoriously tough BBC quiz show University Challenge.
Mr Kwarteng’s parents came to the UK from Ghana as students in the 1960s. He was born in East London in 1975, the same year as Ms Truss.
His economist father and barrister mother gave him a traditional Ashanti first name, meaning “born on Sunday”, when he was actually born on a Monday. He told the BBC’s Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast his parents stayed silent on the matter when he jokingly pulled them up on it.
The Church was a strong part of his mother’s life and she was a lifelong Conservative voter.
He was just three years old when Margaret Thatcher came to power, and she would remain prime minister until his GCSE year. He has said in the past that his mother deeply admired Thatcher as someone “who wanted to rely on their own efforts” and has described himself as a “pragmatic Thatcherite”.
He attended the exclusive private school Eton College after winning a scholarship there, and went on to graduate with a double first from Cambridge University in classics and history.
One well-known anecdote about the young Kwasi Kwarteng harks back to his admissions interview for Trinity College. The self-confident 17-year-old told the tutor, who had arrived late and hadn’t conducted many of these interviews before: “Don’t worry, sir – I’m sure you’ll do very well.”
He was part of the Cambridge team which won University Challenge in 1995, although he generated headlines for uttering a swearword after he buzzed in and forgot the answer to a question. See complete BBC NEWS article at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62796213?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA
