Kwasi Kwarteng hurled an F-bomb on University Challenge and writes Latin poetry


The incoming chancellor may be a well-known brainiac with a Cambridge University PhD in economic history.

But Kwasi Kwarteng is not always able to provide solutions. He buzzed in answer to a donkey-related question on University Challenge in 1995, only to tell the game show host, Jeremy Paxman, “Oh f***, I’ve forgotten.”

As if that wasn’t horrible enough the first time, he added, “Oh f***,” again, after searching his brain.

The new Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is a close friend of Liz Truss, so close that he lives 350 yards away in Greenwich

The new Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is a close friend of Liz Truss, so close that he lives 350 yards away in Greenwich

Bungling The 19-year-old classics student murmured several expletives, but the BBC producers missed them and they were aired to the country.

In fact, Mr. Kwarteng initially gained widespread recognition in a page three The Sun piece titled “Rudiversity Challenge.”

However, Mr. Kwarteng, a student, got the last laugh when his Trinity College Cambridge squad won each stage and went on to win the 1995 University Challenge championship.

After Liz Truss nominated him to the Treasury during some of the worst economic circumstances in recent memory, he will be hoping his winning run continues.

Although he is not well-known to the general public, the Spelthorne, Surrey, MP, who is 47, has a strong academic background.

Mr. Kwarteng is a physical and intellectual powerhouse at 6 feet 5 inches tall. He was born in east London in 1975, the only child of Ghanaian immigrants from the 1960s who came to the UK as students, economist father Alfred and lawyer mother Charlotte.

Before going to the exclusive prep school Colet Court and receiving a scholarship to Eton, where he was considered as one of the school’s smartest students, he attended a public elementary school in Waltham Forest.

He can speak German, Greek, and French, and he can compose Latin poetry.

According to a friend, when the school added Italian to the curriculum, “the instructors were attempting to teach elementary Italian but Kwasi learned the full language – the teachers were straining to keep up with him.”

In the Wall Game, a combination of football and rugby, where he played First Wall, described by an Etonian as “an absolutely suicidal position that necessitated spending most of the match having his skull scraped against bricks,” Mr. Kwarteng excelled like Boris Johnson, who attended Eton a decade earlier.

He received the Eton Newcastle Scholarship award for excellence in a series of written exams, much like Mr. Johnson, who he has long supported.

He served as a prefect at the institution, and he is reportedly still used as an example of how to do well in Oxbridge interviews.

Kwarteng reportedly remarked, “Oh, don’t worry, sir, you did good” to the anxious, inexperienced instructor questioning him at Trinity College when he was 18 years old.

He was praised by friends at Cambridge for being “very confident, but not arrogant.” According to one, he “had quite a few girlfriends” and “had catching up to do following his sons’ education in elite schools.”

He was described as “a bit of a young fogey” by Professor Tim Whitmarsh, who taught him Latin and Greek, who said: “I once saw a 19-year-old Kwasi in full brown tweed wandering about with a pipe in his mouth on a blistering hot day.”

He received a Kennedy scholarship to Harvard University after earning a double-first in classics and history, and he later returned to Cambridge to get his PhD in economic history.

Sean Blanchflower, one of the three other panellists from his University Challenge team, earned a PhD in mathematics and rose to the position of vice president of engineering at a significant software business.

Erik Gray, the fourth member of Trinity’s team, is now a professor of English and comparative literature at Columbia University in New York.

Robin Bhattacharyya, another mathematician on the team, later became a math teacher at a private school.

One of Mr. Kwarteng’s university friends said that he “is essentially an intellectual.”

He keeps up his interest in history and was just seen reading a book on Bismarck on a plane.

But he was also determined to pursue a career in politics, and in 2010, at the start of David Cameron’s government, he was elected the Conservative MP for Spelthorne after working briefly as a fund manager for JP Morgan.

The two remain close friends. Miss Truss, also 47, was a new MP at the same time as them. In Greenwich, south London, Mr. Kwarteng purchased a Victorian property last year that was just 350 yards from Miss Truss’ four-story, £1.5 million townhouse.

They now live next to one other in Downing Street.

The former Conservative home secretary Amber Rudd and Mr. Kwarteng were formerly romantically involved.

Then he ran across 36-year-old Harriet Edwards, a former Cheltenham Ladies’ College student who is now a successful corporate attorney with a focus on counselling private customers on “succession” planning.

The couple wed in 2019 and had a daughter, Ida, last year.

According to a friend who has known the couple for a long time, Miss Edwards “stabilised” her husband and “gave him a home life he didn’t have” before they met.

The couple had a run-in with Greenwich planning inspectors not long after settling into their £1.74 million property with its sizable backyard and lush veranda.

Without first getting permission, they hired a professional to clean the bricks on the front of the home.

The Grade II-listed home allegedly suffered “criminal” damage, according to a complaint the council received.

A conservation officer, however, supported the pair following an inquiry and praised them for gently returning the brickwork to its original Victorian hue.

Brexit supporter Mr. Kwarteng’s ministerial career just started a little over four years ago after he spent eight years on the Tory backbenches.

He was appointed to the Department for Exiting the European Union but swiftly advanced to become a significant figure in Boris Johnson’s administration, sitting at the Cabinet table in 2021 as the Business Secretary.

The free-marketeer, who is described as a “pragmatist rather than an ideology,” is said to have a giant whiteboard in his ministry that is inscribed with the initials “MSH,” which stand for “making s*** happen.”

It is a motto that could be helpful for the incoming chancellor given the many obstacles he must overcome.


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