Kwasi Kwarteng: the leading light of the Tory right

Kwasi Kwarteng, who studied 17th-century currency policy for his doctoral thesis, has always had a keen interest in economic crises. Now he is in one of his own making

Kwasi Kwarteng
(Image credit: © Geoff Pugh/Shutterstock)

When Kwasi Kwarteng was at the Department for Business, he had the letters MSH put up on the wall. They stood for Make Shit Happen. The question now, as the “shitcoin” (as Redditers dub it) stabilises and an uneasy calm returns to bond markets, is what Kwarteng will make of his second chance. Assuming he gets one.

Some predict he may yet become “the sacrificial lamb” of a grand project gone wrong. “We get it and we have listened,” said the chancellor as he U-turned on the 45p. Behind the breezy façade, he must have been squirming. It’s hard to hear yourself described as the author of the most “kami-Kwasi” budget in Britain’s history.

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Explore More

Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.