Kwasi Kwarteng
Akwasi Addo Alfred Kwarteng (born 26 May 1975)is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Spelthorne in northern Surrey since May 2010.
He was Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 2021 to 2022, and Chancellor of the Exchequer for the Liz Truss government between September and October 2022.
Kwarteng was born in London to Ghanaian immigrant parents and was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge.
He worked as a columnist for The Daily Telegraph and as a financial analyst before standing for election as an MP. In November 2018, Kwarteng was appointed Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Exiting the European Union.
Following the election of Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party, and hence Prime Minister, in July 2019, Kwarteng was promoted to Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth, attending Cabinet. In January 2021, Kwarteng was promoted to the office of Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
Kwasi Kwarteng
After Johnson resigned in 2022, Kwarteng supported Liz Truss’s bid to become Conservative leader.
Following Truss’s appointment as Prime Minister, she appointed Kwarteng as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
His appointment made him the first black person to serve as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
On 23 September, Kwarteng announced various tax cuts in a “mini-budget” that was widely criticised and which briefly caused sterling to fall to its lowest-ever level against the US dollar.
Kwarteng was dismissed as Chancellor on 14 October after 38 days, making him the second-shortest-serving post-war Chancellor.
Kwasi Kwarteng
Early life and education
After starting school at a state primary school in Waltham Forest ,Kwarteng attended Colet Court, an independent preparatory school in London, where he won the Harrow History Prize in 1988.
Then Kwarteng went to Eton College, where he was a King’s Scholar and was awarded the Newcastle Scholarship prize.
He read classics and history at Trinity College, Cambridge, matriculating in 1993.
He achieved a double first class degree ,and twice won the Browne Medal.
He was a member of the team which won the BBC quiz show University Challenge in 1995. At Cambridge, he was a member of the University Pitt Club, and has since returned to visit.
He was a Kennedy Scholar for a year at Harvard University, and then earned a PhD degree in economic history from the University of Cambridge in 2000, with a thesis on the recoinage crisis of 1695–97
