Meet Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer. He’s rather odd
Kwasi Kwarteng is bold, brainy and weird
A maiden speech in the House of Commons is a moment for platitudes about predecessors and idle trivia about the local constituency. In the summer of 2010, Kwasi Kwarteng, a young Conservative mp, used his as a chance to attack.
Addressing Labour mps across the chamber, Mr Kwarteng blamed them for the state of Britain’s finances, which had been blown apart by the financial crisis of 2007-09. “They have not once accepted any blame for what happened and they seem to think that we can just sail on as before,” said Mr Kwarteng, who was 35 at the time. Skip forward 12 years and Mr Kwarteng is Britain’s chancellor, overseeing finances again scarred by crises. The first job for this one-time fiscal hawk will be to spend tens of billions of pounds guaranteeing energy prices for households and firms.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "The curious case of Kwasi Kwarteng"
Britain September 10th 2022
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