Weep not for Kwasi Kwarteng

BY TONY ADEMILUYI

I read ‘Ghosts of the Empire’ written by the then newly elected MP for Spelthorne in Surrey, Kwasi Kwarteng, and I was struck by his brilliance and deep knowledge of history especially economic history. There and then I predicted that he would end up as the chancellor of the Exchequer because of the predilection of the British for historians to hold the second-highest office in the realm. Historians Gordon Brown and George Osborne, to mention a few, were previous holders of that office and so my prediction which came to pass on September 6, 2022, was perfectly in order.

His other book ‘Britannia Unchained: Global Lessons for Growth and Prosperity’ which he co-wrote with Liz Truss, Dominic Raab and Priti Patel was largely influenced by his American postgraduate doctoral education at Harvard where he lampooned the British for being one of the laziest in the world and called for a massive reduction in the welfare state and for the supremacy of free markets.

When he made history on September 6 as the first black chancellor of the Exchequer, few blacks cheered his ‘landmark’ appointment as his antecedents tragically showed that he was just another Uncle Tom who was the black face of the so-called ‘diversity and inclusiveness’ idea that Liz Truss surreptitiously sold to her countrymen.

He defended the Windrush scandal where some British of Caribbean descent were cruelly deported. It was crystal clear that this Eton, Cambridge and Harvard-trained historian, journalist, investment banker and politician had no scruples in throwing his race under the bus in his avaricious bid to gain political, economic and social capital among the Caucasian Overlords.

He unveiled his mini budget on September 23 which he described as one of the biggest tax cuts in British economic history. Rishi Sunak, a contender for the exalted office of prime minister had warned the British public of the well-packaged poison that his then arch-rival and former foreign secretary, Liz Truss, was selling to the unsuspecting public in the name of tax cuts. Kwarteng was the mere mouthpiece of her economic agenda and like the willing servant – a modern-day clone of former chancellor Thomas Cromwell who King Henry VIII had no scruples in throwing under the bus by beheading him when the advice of the latter in the marriage to the German Princess Anne of Cleves led to a gargantuan foreign policy disaster, the same fate befell Kwarteng because ironically the ‘supposed brilliant historian’ failed to learn from history.

No sooner had he unveiled the mini-budget, which to explain to the layman took billions of pounds from the poor and transferred to the rich in the name of tax cuts, than the financial markets began to violently react to the poisoned chalice. In just three weeks, close to 41 billion GBP was lost and the Bank of England had to hurriedly safeguard the pensions of aged British workers from being completely wiped out by intervening with the whooping sum of 19.3 billion GBP.

Prior to the annual IMF/World Bank Meetings which held in Washington DC, the Bretton Woods Institutions scathingly criticised the mini budget and made the hitherto cerebral Kwarteng appear like a Lilliputian on economic issues. The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, didn’t spare him either as she poked holes in the mini-budget. The corporation tax in which there was a U-turn due to the public backlash saw the rates purport to rise from 19% to 25%.

The Bank of England Governor, Andrew Bailey, sternly warned that the mini-budget will lead to higher rates which will most likely be the precursor to a recession.

Kwarteng who ironically went to Eton on a scholarship was rather insensitive to the plight of the British poor in his morbid bid to please his masters by doing the exact opposite of what the legendary Robin Hood did in the days of yore. The Russian-Ukrainian war has seen the costs of energy skyrocket out of the reach of the common man in the world’s once-largest empire. Many cannot afford heating and face the grim prospect of freezing to death in the incoming winter. So bad is the situation that the left-wing Guardian UK recently launched a series captioned ‘Heat or Eat Diaries’ where some anonymous poor Brits opine that they are mostly faced with the choice of either eating or heating their homes and cannot afford to do both at the same time. Kwarteng conveniently forgot not only his racial roots but also the fact that he was the son of a lower middle-class economist and barrister Ghanaian immigrant couple and didn’t enjoy similar privileges in Eton that the likes of David Cameron, Boris Johnson enjoyed in the most prestigious public school in the UK.

This is a lesson to other Uncle Toms like Kemi Badenoch who threw Nigeria under the bus as well that the term ‘Black British’ is a cruel oxymoron and there would never be any true reward for a black person who denies his people for a mere mess of pottage.

Tragically, Kwarteng would go done in history as the worst Chancellor of the Exchequer in the history of the UK – so much for a ‘brilliant’ and promising politician who may have overreached himself by tinkering with the idea of probably becoming the first black British prime minister.

Ademiluyi is a Lagos-based journalist and writer. He can be reached at [email protected] and +2348167677075