Friday 23 September 2022 11:05 AM Kwasi Kwarteng: from Eton prefect to Britain's tax-slashing first black ... trends now
Kwasi Kwarteng took a scythe to taxes for millions of Britons today after being handed the toughest job in Government just weeks into his tenure as Chancellor.
Like his predecessor Rishi Sunak he has been handed an economic crisis of seismic proportions before the ink on his new business cards has even dried.
In Mr Sunak's case it was the the Covid pandemic in 2020. For Mr Kwarteng it is how to get UK PLC out of an energy price and inflation hole dug by Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine.
To do so Mr Kwarteng today unveiled the biggest raft of tax cuts in half a century in an event which looked very much like an emergency Budget, even if the Treasury was careful to avoid calling it one.
Mr Kwarteng 47, will need to keep to his mantra of MSH - Make Sh*t Happen - if he is to help the UK grow its way to recovery.
The avowed free marketeer today introduced a swathe of tax cuts and other economic levers he and Prime Minister Liz Truss will hope will see off the worst predictions for Britain's immediate future.
The new Chancellor may be a renowned brainbox with a PhD in economic history from Cambridge University, but he does not always have the answers. When he appeared on University Challenge in 1995, he buzzed in response to a question about a donkey, only to declare to quizmaster Jeremy Paxman: 'Oh f***, I've forgotten.'
As if it weren't bad enough the first time, after racking his brains, he added: 'Oh f***', again.
Bungling BBC producers failed to notice the 19-year-old classics student's muttered swearing, and they were broadcast to the nation.
And so it was that Mr Kwarteng first came to national attention in an article on page three of The Sun headlined 'Rudiversity Challenge'.
But undergraduate Mr Kwarteng had the last laugh as his team from Trinity College Cambridge won every stage and went on to be crowned the 1995 champions of University Challenge.
He will be hoping his winning streak continues – after Liz Truss appointed him to the Treasury amid some of the toughest economic conditions in living memory.
The former Business Secretary, who has a home on the same Greenwich street as Ms Truss, has moved in next to her in No11 with his solicitor wife Harriet, and their young daughter.
Like predecessor Rishi Sunak, Kwasi Kwarteng he has been handed an economic crisis of economic proportions before the ink on his new business cards has even dried.
The former Business Secretary, who has a home on the same Greenwich street as Ms Truss, has moved in next to her in No11 with his solicitor wife Harriet Edwards, and their young daughter.
Mr Kwarteng was born in east London to Ghanaian parents who moved to England as students in the 1960s.
Charlotte Boaitey-Kwarteng, 78, is head of 12 Square Chambers, which is based in Holborn in north London and specialises in human rights,
