Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng is the favorite to be the UK’s next Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Photographer: Hollie Adams/Bloomberg
Kwarteng’s Affinity With Truss May Win Him Keys to UK Coffers
The business secretary’s economic ideology chimes with Liz Truss’s, leaving him well-placed to be her Chancellor of the Exchequer if she wins the race to be the next prime minister.
If political events go Kwasi Kwarteng’s way, he’ll soon be supplementing the little burgundy notepad he carries with an altogether more substantial and brightly-colored item — the famous red box wielded on budget day by the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Kwarteng, 47, is tipped by Conservative Party insiders to become Liz Truss’s finance minister if she wins the race to succeed Prime Minister Boris Johnson next month. With inflation at a four-decade high and the Bank of England predicting a recession, it’s a daunting prospect for the business secretary, who prides himself on “Making Shit Happen” — the meaning of the letters “MSH” that adorn a whiteboard in his office above a list of factories the government has financially supported.