harking back

Kwasi Kwarteng – the big brain at the heart of Britain’s radical right counter revolution 

By Patrick Smith, Jaysim Hanspal

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Posted on October 3, 2022 07:01

Styling themselves as right-wing disrupters, Britain’s new Conservative prime minister Liz Truss and her close friend and finance minister Kwasi Kwarteng haven’t disappointed their narrowing band of supporters.

Of the two, Kwarteng, of Ghanaian heritage, is seen as the intellectual powerhouse and insouciant in interviews. Truss comes across as awkward and staccato, but as committed ideologically to the radical right project as her finance minister.

In the two weeks Kwarteng and Truss have been in power, the British pound has sunk to its lowest level against the US dollar in 35 years, interest rates on British treasury bonds shot up to their highest level since the global financial crisis of 2008, and the ensuing crisis is reckoned to have added another £18bn ($20bn) a year to interest payments on the government’s debt.

Global disbelief

As the chaos continued, and home loan companies in London started withdrawing deals, the IMF condemned Truss and Kwarteng’s policies, warning them that they risked worsening inequality and urging them to reconsider their announcement of $45bn of unfunded tax

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