On the 6th of September 2022, Mary Elizabeth Truss was sworn in as the 56th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom – and just two days later the Queen was dead. Truss promised her new government would tackle the cost-of-living crisis, with her cabinet being the most diverse in political history. Truss’ government would leave its mark on the UK on the 23rd of September – remembered as the day astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle became the first person ever to observe the planet Neptune in 1846, celebrated as ‘Hug a Vegetarian Day’, the day Bruce Springsteen was born, and a day long awaited as it marks the 99 remaining days left in a year. This year we were able to add a new attribute to the 23rd of September: the day of the mini budget; the day pensions were nearly destroyed; the day the pound hit the ground harder than Liz Truss’ first day. All of this destruction and desolation attributed to Truss and the new chancellor, the right honourable, past tense tory, full time economy destroyer, Kwasi Kwarteng. But where did this ‘trussful’ and ‘kwasilicious’ duo come from? How did they get it so wrong? And now that they are gone, where will they strike next?
Akwasi Addo Alfred Kwarteng was born in the London Borough Waltham Forest on the 26th of May 1975 to parents Alfred and Charlotte. Even up till today, Kwarteng has spent most of his life in the greater London area. A shortly after Kwarteng, Mary Elizabeth Truss was born on the 26th of July 1975 to parents John and Priscilla Truss in Oxford. Truss’ relationship with her parents is infamously known for being sour to say the least, with Truss herself describing her parents as ‘the left of Labour’ (from a Sunday Times article). Close to home, Truss briefly went to Roundhay School in Leeds, although Truss herself has not been overly kind to the school in her post education years. Kwarteng went to the local primary school and, later in life, studied at Eton College before reading at Trinity College Cambridge (like so many a conservative politician). He made his first notable public appearance at age 19 when he appeared on Trinity College Cambridge’s University Challenge Team of 1995 (in which year Trinity won). What was notable about Kwarteng here was his nervousness, forgetfulness and his language, as CambridgeshireLive puts it ‘When Mr Kwarteng failed to come up with the right answer, he couldn’t hide his frustrations. After buzzing to answer he said, “Oh f*** I’ve forgotten”’ – the starter question that was asked: what is the role of Chancellor of the Exchequer in the UK government? Kwarteng would use the swear-word twice, with the Sun mockingly dubbing the episode and Kwarteng as ‘Rudiversity Challenge’.
Truss initially started her political career a year earlier than Kwarteng’s University Challenge appearance in 1994, as an Oxford Liberal Democrat, not a Conservative member. Before her conservative political career took place, she worked for Royal Dutch Shell (between 1996 and 2000), during which time (1998) she joined the Lewisham Deptford Conservative Association – a local group of tory party members – serving in the position of chair. Kwarteng earned a PhD from Cambridge in 2000, his thesis subject being ‘the recoinage crises of 1695-97,’ which interestingly enough nearly crippled the country financially, but was stopped by the banks and the introduction of the gold standard – there will be a few times that Kwarteng’s work ironically foreshadows his and Truss’ more than humble tenure (surprisingly Kwarteng was only the second shortest serving Chancellor of the Exchequer, the first being Ian Macleod who died in office). Before becoming an MP, Kwarteng would work as a columnist for The Daily Telegraph, alongside being a financial analyst for JPMorgan Chase. In this time, he also wrote his first book, ‘Ghosts of Empire’. Kwarteng has written several books in his time: ‘After the Coalition’; ‘Gridlock Nation’; ‘Britain Unchained’; ‘War and Gold’; and ‘Thatcher’s Trial’.
Truss would spend twelve years trying to get into parliament in several failed bids for local constituencies – such as: Hemsworth in 2001 (in which she came second, due to Hemsworth Labour nature); Calder Valley in 2005; South West Norfolk Seat in 2009 (a position pushed by David Cameron, that nearly cost her her job after a motion was made to terminate Truss’ candidature, which ultimately only gained 37 votes for, against 132 votes against). She finally joined parliament in 2010 following her election to the house of commons. Similarly at this time, Kwarteng also joined politics becoming the MP for Spelthorne. Both candidates would spend some time in their initial duties before equipping the jetpack from doodle jump to help ascend the political ladder. Truss made her way up this ladder from junior minister to justice secretary, lord chancellor, chief secretary to the Treasury, International Trade Secretary and (under Great Uncle Bulgaria lookalike, Boris Johnson) Foreign Secretary. Kwarteng similarly did quite well, ascending to ‘Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union’ in 2018 (the last MP to fill the role before it was dissolved) under the dancing queen Theresa May. Kwarteng then took small but notable steps up: ‘Minister of State for Business, Energy and Clean Growth’ in 2019 under Captain Mainwaring’s distant relation Boris Johnson; (and) ‘Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’ in 2021, again under BoJo. Truss, although not initially favoured to win the Conservative leadership election (with Sunak being favoured instead), he kept growing in support with every knockout, and ended up winning the campaign and becoming the Prime Minister, electing several of her formal opponents into cabinet positions, alongside Kwarteng who she entrusted to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Most of the faces of this cabinet (apart from Jacob Rees Mogg) were new and had potential for innovation within the political landscape.
But that’s not to say that Truss ascended the political ladder without leaving a trace. When she was a Lib Dem she made her famous speech on the abolishment of the monarch – something that started a number of conspiracy theories after the Queen’s death. Truss, in 2014, at a Conservative party conference made her famous speeches on the disgrace of cheese imports, and a new infamous clip of ‘in December, I’ll be in Beijing, opening up new pork markets!’ – the latter famously emphasised in it’s absurdness by the use of the creepy smile and split second before the clapping of confused Tories. Truss voted Remain in Brexit but has come out and said that if it were to happen again, she would vote Leave. Truss’ apparel has also been criticised, with many likening it to that of the apparel of Margaret Thatcher – alongside her apparent spending of £1,800 of government money on two trips to the ‘hairdresser’ . In the conservative leadership campaign, her reaction to presenter Kate McCann’s faint was plastered on social media for a few days, alongside Truss’ exclamation of ‘oh my God’. Sky News also shared an awkward moment on the 22nd of July, when Truss visited a school and a student stated, ‘this is so awkward!’ Her public life has also faced scrutiny, such as her aforementioned poor relationship with her parents, alongside an incident in 2006 where it was reported that she had been having an affair with Tory MP Mark Field for 18 months – which did not cause her marriage with Hugh O’Leary to end.
A bit of history now – the Conservative Prime Minister Arthur Balfour was the last Conservative Prime Minister before the Liberal Party won the election in 1906, and his character was often described as somewhat aristocratic, and unable to understand the political and (mainly) social landscape of the time. One can wonder if Truss’ public spectacles of absurdity only echo Balfour, alongside the reports the night before her announcement of ‘man-handling’ over the fracking bill reflecting the walk out of the Tories. One can also wonder if Rishi is unable to ease this sentiment in the party, if the results of the 1906 election will reflect that of the 2024 election, of a conservative defeat.
Kwarteng was in a way, less obtrusive in his career’s history. He has often been a closed off figure to the public, and his views are somewhat divisive and traditionally Tory. Kwarteng backed Brexit in 2016 and was also critical of the Black Lives Matter movement. In an interview with the Independent he stated that many BLM supporters had a ‘very king of cartoon-life view’ of colonialism. Kwarteng was the first black MP to hold the titles of ‘Secretary of State’ and ‘Chancellor of the Exchequer,’ although one Labour MP – Rupa Huq – described him as ‘superficially black,’ a comment that got her suspended from parliament over racism, and rightly so. Kwarteng was also not uber friendly with a reporter asking about the financial crisis, having slightly better dialogue than an The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion NPC, in which he simply responded, ‘I’m just going to my office now’. ‘Speech 100’. Kwarteng has also had another helping, on top of his university challenge days, of newspaper headlines, such as ‘Honey, I shrunk the quids’ from the Daily Star, and the now infamous ‘Kami-Kwasi’. Kwarteng has done quite a lot during his life, but it seems like his tenure as chancellor – alongside Truss’ tenure as Prime Minister – will be his political epitaph, so the real question is where does he and Truss go now?
This article was initially started back before Truss or Kwarteng’s ‘coin kerfuffle,’ and I was initially hoping to write some factual summaries of both of their lives, a bit more of a humorous side of more scandalous parts of their career and end on a high, and leave this final paragraph to bring the overall tone back to one of unbiasedness – saying something like ‘but time will tell how Truss and Kwarteng’s tenures will pan out, but we can hope to see good things from this new government.’ But since then: Truss fired Kwarteng; Truss herself resigned; (and) Rishi became Prime Minister after all. The two could have bunkered down and let the 2022 equivalent of Game of Thrones Season 6 (mandatory ‘Winter is coming’ joke) pass by, but the sentiment from the public – alongside that of the Tory party conference – showed that neither of the dynamic duo were very popular figures, and we could see either of them packing shelves at M&S soon. Kwarteng’s attempt at economic management has proved to be not a very popular one, and only time will tell of Kwarteng’s fate post his 38-day tenure. Truss’ future is even more uncertain – the first Prime Minister of the Caroline era lasting just seven weeks – less than a Fortnite season – and now going down in history as the shortest serving Prime Minister. It is hard to see how she will recover (if at all). So who knows. Will they come back? Will they find employment elsewhere? Will one of them take the Ed Balls route and join the next series of Strictly Come Dancing?
But for now, lettuce rejoice over our first Prime Minister of Asian heritage. However looking back on his first few months as Prime Minister – ridden with strike actions, further inflation, scandals over taxation of government officials (naturally) and Sunak being fined for not wearing a seat belt (his second fine after party-gate) – it’s probably safe to say that, to quote John Laurie’s Private Fraser, ‘we’re doomed!’