YouSaid · the spoken record

Kwasi Kwarteng

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83
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2024-05-19
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2024-05-19
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  1. “When we announced the actual measures. So there was all this sort of personal taxation stuff, which looked in retrospect, I think even at the time, but we should have delayed that for the budget. We should have sliced it for the spring.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “That was. And the other thing that was a mistake was that she campaigned on two things. She was going to reverse the increase in national insurance and she was not going to increase the corporation tax. And that scored at $35 billion. And I think the market knew that because she'd been saying that all through the campaign.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “We announced $45 billion of unfunded tax cuts. So, what that means is that you're reducing taxes, but you're not getting any money. You're not reducing spending, and you're not raising other taxes. And that was quite a...”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “So there were two things that happened. So there was the energy intervention, which was scored by the OBR at, I think it was about 80 billion.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “It had, but she inflamed that. I mean, when she called me back in the middle of the IMF thing, I thought, what on earth are you doing?”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I think she just had this intense urgency. I mean, you've worked with her in a department. There was just that intense urgency, which I respect, but you can't do that all the time. You can't sprint a marathon famously. You can't do that. And actually, I remember one point after the mini-budget, I said, what we've got to do now is just slow everything down. Just be extremely calm and not try and rush and do anything, not overreacting.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “So, I mean, I've read the book and I know her quite well. Liz Trust. Yeah, the Liz Trust book, the 10 Days to Save the World. That sounds like a film. But no, 10 years.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Huge event of the passing of Queen Elizabeth II happened, and there was no debate about the energy intervention. None whatsoever. I remember thinking this is extraordinary. We've just committed 80 billion or whatever it was, the black hole, one of the black holes. And there was no debate. And then, looking back, hindsight is a great thing, but looking back, everything should have slowed down at that point. But what we did was we just doubled up. We just doubled up.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “And it wasn't even debated. So that was announced, I think it was during that announcement that we got the news that the Queen was engraved. Danger in terms of her illness. And so that was announced. And then, of course,”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “The Ukraine war partly prices were shooting up, and gas prices had gone up through the roof. And there was a debate in the government. Some people took a more cautious view. The Prime Minister's view was that we should be very generous. So that was the one big bazookas.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Simple terms, what you did for people. So, what we essentially did was we capped the energy price at $2,500 for households for two years, which was hugely generous. And as a result,”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Yeah, so I think there were two things that happened. And for the people who were following the markets, we did this energy intervention, which was incredibly generous. I mean, that was billions and billions and billions. And the market sort of absorbed that”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “That's right. And then the fundamental thing that we got wrong, Prime Minister, myself, the pace of it was absurd. At that point, having won and given what had happened with this national disaster really in terms of the Queen's passing, it was a great moment of national reflection. And she'd been monarch for 70 years. Everything should have been slowed down. I remember thinking, okay, we've got the funeral on the Monday and the mini budget was on the Friday.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “But you know what? The funny thing about it was looking back, it never felt real because the first thing that we were plunged into was the accession council and her late majesty, her passing. It never felt secure. I never felt”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “And then we went through these rounds. And at the time, I said, look, we can't just have a leadership election in the next week or two. But that's what we did. We went through all these rounds. I think from the position I was in, I was business secretary at the time. SUNAC's tax position I wasn't in favor of. So we went with Liz with epic consequences, which I'm sure we'll talk about. So it was a sort of binary question. Those were the two candidates that were up and running. And also there's a sort of convention, which was a foolish thing for me to think, but that you've really got to be one of the senior office holders to become prime minister. It's very rare that that hasn't happened. It's usually the home secretary or the front secretary or the chancellor. So those were the two people that were in play. And it was clear to me because of the things we were talking about, the messaging, Lis Ross was always going to win that race, always.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “And then it happened incredibly quickly. So the letter came, I was having breakfast with a friend, the letter that I saw the tweet, Simon McDonald's written the letter, I think, on the Tuesday. By the Thursday he'd gone.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Because I was naive. And I remember saying to Grant, I had lunch with Grant a few months ago. I said, if you really actually want to get to the top, you've got to start thinking about it from the first day you're in the cabinet. It's a continual thinking about it, planning. And that might be unfair on them and they would deny it. But then it's not, you know, they're always thinking about it. Because what happened with the collapse of Johnson was it happened really quickly. At every stage during 2022, he looked precarious, but he somehow survived, you know, and it looked as if it was a tipping.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “That's a very good question. So let me just talk through my thinking. So with Johnson in 2019, the party had reached an impasse. Yeah, Theresa May wasn't going anywhere. The Brexit thing wasn't going anywhere. And we needed something, someone to break that mold. And Johnson was the agent who did that. Roll forward to summer 2022. Essentially had two candidates. He had Rishi Sunak and his truss. It was pretty clear that those two. And to be fair, they were the only ones who had a sort of operation. I think Penny Morden had an operation as well.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “I think that's a phenomenon across the modern world. I don't necessarily think it's a great thing, but I just accept it as something that's happening.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “30% thinking about government, 70% campaigning and if you look at people like Liz Truss, who's a friend or Grant Schaps, their skill, they are TikTok, Instagram, Twitter people. So it's all about the message and being a bit unfair on Grant. But he's good at that stuff. And that now counts. I mean, as you say, 40 years ago, none of that stuff existed.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “And that's where a lot, but I think that's always been the case. Because also as an MP, when you're in Parliament, you're kind of on show, you're kind of in a public place, you're watching what you're saying. They're MPs who you think they're your friends, but they might be saying things to the whips, or what have you. So everyone's a little bit guarded. And I think a lot of that conversation happens outside of...”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “I think what works actually, and you know where the Conservative Party, the parliamentary party, they do things off-site. So a lot of the plotting and all of that kind of business, it never happens actually within parliament. They'll have a beer somewhere or there'll be, you know, the cult wherever.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “But I think there's something, I think it's a very British thing where you don't want to be seen to be talking shop. I think it's a cultural thing, actually. So it's like if you're bringing up some tax issue in the tea room, it's kind of bad manners. People are there with their scon. They have to think that tea. They don't want to hear about. I certainly always got that impression from you every time.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “They talk about gossip. Yes, you're right. You're right. They talk a bit about gossip, or they talk about very particular issues, but they don't talk about policy. I've never had really a conversation. Why not? I don't know. I think it's”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Yeah, yeah, exactly. You have to respond to your emails immediately, or if not immediately, you know, I get emails after two days. Why haven't you responded to me? That sort of thing. I think that the debate between the parties and also within the parties people are just sort of fed up with each other and quite rude.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “I think it's tough. But it's rewarding as well. I mean, I said, even though I'm leaving, I would do it all over again. I think it's an incredible privilege. You get huge access actually helping people on the constituency level is hugely rewarding and representing people. That's a great privilege. But I think in terms of the, it's much more attritional. So you can't look at Twitter too much because there's a lot of stuff that people will be saying.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “So, I think I just felt I didn't quite have the sort of energy to do. Because this is the thing. This is a 24-7 culture. I also was very worried about what the parliament, and we could talk about that as well. I mean, the party, the state of the party. And a friend of mine who's an MP said, I'm not worried about losing. I'm worried about winning and coming back. So it's not a good mindset. Stepping down, he's stepping down. But we could, you know, I mean, five months, six months is a long time. Who knows what will happen? But there's a view that the party, if it does lose, will go through this sort of fatricidal. And Labour did it. You had Corbyn and all the rest of it.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “Going to stay in the House of Commons for 40 years. If you're getting 200 emails a day and you're there 24 7 and you're replying on Twitter.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “There's not I think it's just a very demanding, and we could talk about that. It's a very demanding life now. I think the social media has made things a lot more sort of hostile, a much thicker skin, you know, thickens the skin, thins the hair, as someone said to me, and you just need to be very robust. I think it's quite intrusive now. And even, you know, I've been in politics in the House of Commons for 14 years, even in that time it's changed. It's changed. And people I know who were MPs, people like Ken Clark, who was an MP in the 70s, others. Someone said to me, you know, a busy week, you get 10 letters in the 1970s. There's no email, nothing like that. And you might get 10 letters. And the friend who told me they said, and half of them were about Palestine even then, that was the male bag. And I think now there's, you know, I get 200 emails a day, which is fine and we deal with them. We read them. We have to have a response. And it's a much faster pace. And that has a knock-on effect. I think that's why you're seeing people, you know.”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Random. So there's a random, it's two things the two dynamics there's a randomness and then there's a slight control. I mean, there are people on our benches who are fluent Cantonese speakers, Mandarin speakers. They've never been ministers. I mean, you know who I'm talking about. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely extraordinary. And the people who were the Asian minister wouldn't be able to name three Asian capitals. I'm not going to say anything. But that's...”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “I think it's control. And also, it works in our institutions. I mean, I know people in the foreign office who were told they were brilliant Arabists and they were moved to Hungary or Japan and said, oh, it's good for you to broaden your horizons. Well, I've just spent 10 years learning Arabic. Why are you sending me to Japan? But it's not”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “So, you know, crazy things like when you had a reshuffle. And you describe this very eloquently in your book. So, you know, the one man who knows more about Asia than anyone, what will we do? We'll make a minister for Africa, which he knows nothing about. But this happens all the time. And I think I was very conscious of that right from the start, that actually you could be the world's leading expert on China. And they would never put you in a department where you had to use your knowledge. I mean, it's crazy. And why?”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “So I'd stood in Brent East in 2005, and you and I have spent many hours in the past talking about history and politics, the empire. Things we're interested in. And I saw the modern House of Commons as something completely different. And I think you, to your credit, had a more romantic, probably less cynical view of what actually was going on”

    2024-05-19 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 74. Kwasi Kwarteng: Liz Truss, becoming Chancellor, and Britain on the brink (Part 2) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source