Kwasi Kwarteng: The future chancellor who faces a difficult task

Kwasi Kwarteng is a shining example of how the politics is not quite as easy as people tend to think.

Kwarteng, 47, is smart enough to win a scholarship to Eton, to complete a PhD at Cambridge on the "Political Thought of the Crisis of Reenactment 1695-1697", to win a new scholarship to Harvard, various medals for Latin and Greek poetry and also to win the University Challenge.

Still, he can't seem to help himself from appearing ridiculous almost every time he's on TV. As one of the most incredibly selfish men in all of Westminster, one suspects Kwarteng does not consider Sky News' Kay Burley (to pick a random example) as his intellectual superior. But he has, on countless occasions, failed to provide evidence to support such a belief, should he hold it.

It's not entirely his fault. Kwarteng's recent ascent has been in a firmament made dark by his now-collapsed pole star, Boris Johnson. It's almost impossible to count the number of times Kwarteng has been ridiculed, but it's almost impossible to count the number of other ministers to whom the same thing has happened.

The Most Notable The Occasion arose in November last year, when Johnson placed his MPs under a three-line whip, to force them to vote to, in effect, save Owen Paterson but dishonor himself in the process. Kwarteng roamed the news channels to launch the best defense he could manage against the most appalling breach of standards in years. And no sooner was he done making himself look like an idiot than Johnson decided against it, making him look doubly idiotic.

He didn't seem to care. In some ways, Kwarteng's greatest strength is believing he is so superior to everything around him, that it is indeed impossible to pass him off as a fool. In the world of Kwarteng, if Kwarteng looks ridiculous, there must be something wrong with the world, not him. Nor was it enough, a few months later, for him to join the bravest of his cabinet colleagues and resign as business secretary, thus forcing Johnson to resign. Instead, he quietly let it be known that he had advised the Prime Minister to consider his position.

Yet politics has never been the focus of moral strategy, and such Knowingly tricky maneuvers obviously served Kwarteng well. He hitched his carriages to the Liz Truss train several months ago and in a few days is sure to be dropping it off at 11 Downing Street.

The two have been fellow travelers for some time. Both were among the authors of the now famous book Britannia Unchained, a sort of libertarian pamphlet of wacky ideas. There's not much in the book that Boris Johnson would ever have disagreed with during his time as a Telegraph columnist, but there's not much either in the book that he did not give up almost immediately in the face of reality. , real difficulties of high positions. The Truss/Kwarteng axis will also almost certainly find itself engaged in the struggle between ideological fantasy and real life. The problem is that, in their case, fantasy has a much better chance of winning and therefore everyone has to lose.

His career at Westminster began with a maiden speech in 2010, in which he asked Labor to apologize for the financial crisis. crash of 2008. A noble sentiment, perhaps, although to the extent that any British government could have limited the impact of this global crisis, this could only have been done by less light regulation, which which the Conservatives would not have dreamed of imposing on time, and certainly not Kwarteng. Shortly before being elected MP in 2010, he worked not only in investment banking, but also in the mortgage division of JPMorgan. You don't have to be the greatest expert on this crisis to know precisely where it started.

Kwarteng supported Leave in the EU referendum, although on a personal note, I don't recall any role he may have had in the campaign. From his position as chancellor, he will certainly have many opportunities...