GREATER LOVE HAS NO MAN THAN KWASI

“Dear oh dear.” These were the first words the new British monarch, Charles III, used as he welcomed the Prime Minister into his office on Wednesday evening for their weekly meeting. The words were muttered, almost to himself. It was as though Charles was preparing himself for an awkward time ahead. It seemed that he was asking himself “WTF am I supposed to say to this cloth-eared Tory!”

In all seriousness, though, I think what Charles had in mind was his role as constitutional monarch and whether he could find a way, within the constraints of his authority, to influence the Prime Minister in her execution of government policy. Better still, was it possible to find a formulation of words which could assist this poor lady and save her from herself? How can you rescue a person from a wilful, ceaseless desire to wound themselves irrevocably?

In a famous book from 1867 called The English Constitution, Walter Bagehot wrote that the British monarch has three rights: the right to be consulted; the right to encourage; and the right to warn.

Imagining myself to be King Charles on Wednesday evening, I would have given full vent to the third right he enjoys and warned the following: “Liz, it is not going well for you, is it? The financial markets hate you and your chancellor, the members of your party who are MPs hate you and your chancellor; and the public hate you and your chancellor. It is quite an achievement to alienate one of the three at some point, but all three at the same time takes quite some doing! If you want to retain any hope of coming to see me again as Prime Minister after Christmas this year, you will be well advised to listen to the older and wiser heads in your party and implore them for assistance now, because you desperately need it.”

I don’t think any of my imaginings is overly fanciful because things have gone horribly wrong for the Tories in a head-spinningly short space of time. Just so that I am not accused of being biased against Ms Truss and the Tories, here are a few examples of quotes from people who know what they are talking about:

“Never in my lifetime of more than 50 years in politics have I known a government to make such a catastrophic start.” (Former Conservative chancellor who served under various Tory Prime Ministers, including Margaret Thatcher)

“In all my decades of political journalism, I have never seen anything quite as spectacularly catastrophic as this.” (Former political editor of the BBC)

“She has thrown away years of painstaking work to build and maintain a reputation of fiscal discipline and competence in government. Many of the arguments we routinely deploy against the Labour Party around fiscal management will look extremely limp in light of what has happened over the last two weeks.” (Former Tory chancellor)

How did a new Prime Minister manage to destroy her government’s credibility so thoroughly in less than 40 days and nights in Downing Street? I think it came down to two things: ideology and timing. Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng were ideologically convinced by the magic of Reaganomics. The twisted reasoning of the economic philosophy of a former American president called Ronald Reagan (hence “Reagonomics”), as far as my simple reasoning can make out, was that if the rich get richer, they will spend a lot of money which will eventually trickle down to the poor people. That is all very well – ultimately, we all need to believe in something. The trouble is that if this ideology is ever going to work as it is supposed to, it will take more lifetimes than most of us have available. That is being charitable. The Economist is of the view that Truss and Kwarteng’s economic policy had the shelf life of a lettuce from Tesco’s supermarket.

Then there is timing. Announcing huge tax cuts before you have got out the calculator to work out whether they are affordable seems odd. Back-to-front, if you like. Shouldn’t you first make sure the building blocks are in place and the motor of the economy is purring away nicely before you suddenly wrench out a spark plug because you believe the car can do just as well with one fewer source of ignition? Put it another way, why fly blind?

As if that isn’t bizarre enough, asking the global markets to lend you money so that you can give it away in tax-cuts for the rich on a vague, unspecified promise of “growth” seems like eye-rolling madness. Is there some new brand of weed Chez Truss?

Weed or no weed, the trick to getting by in politics is knowing when to fulfil campaign promises and when not to. Politicians are renowned for their venality. Which politician hasn’t promised you lobster and caviar and delivered fish and chips? Truss and Kwarteng decided to go full steam ahead with every one of Liz Truss’s bizarre campaign promises on day one. Had they gently released each one slowly over time, as circumstances suited, things might have worked out all right. As the Spaniards say, despacito.

You will observe that I have written thus far about the Prime Minister and chancellor as an indivisible pairing. Rarely in British politics has a divorce between the two most important offices of the British state ended other than in disaster. A Prime Minister sacking her chancellor is as clear a sign as any that the end is nigh.

Well, Truss and Kwarteng were two peas in a pod. Separating them was viewed as impossible. If you asked Kwasi whom he loved more dearly than his wife, there would have been only one answer: Elizabeth Truss. So fully committed to the low tax = growth ideology were Kwasi and Liz that they threw everything else out of the window. Result, disaster! The financial markets were completely spooked and the UK economy went into a tailspin. The Bank of England tried to help for a little while, but even they realised they were dealing with people who were smoking a very potent type of weed and were too addicted to be rehabilitated.

Before lighting up the next joint on Thursday, while her mate Kwasi was away at an IMF meeting in Washington, Liz Truss switched on the television and realised she was in the deepest possible pit latrine. The only way out was to get a tall Ghanaian chap to climb in and allow her to use his body as a ladder with which to climb out of the shit. Having cleaned herself up, Truss appeared before the world and told us that she had found a heavy log and thrust Kwasi deeper into the latrine. Greater love has no one than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s Prime Minister. Goodbye Kwasi!

Was defenestrating Kwasi a good idea? This was what Ken Clarke, a seasoned Tory politician and ex-chancellor had to say: “Getting rid of Kwasi won’t do her very much good. It will be an obvious case of scapegoating her partner and closest political ally for the mistakes which have been made.” In other words, try and calm things down by avoiding a sense of panic, keep Kwasi and attempt to demonstrate a return to stable government which does not take decisions in a rushed, ill-informed manner.

So then, Kwasi Kwarteng. As a fellow African, my heart bleeds for the poor chap (and I am not being sarcastic). Notwithstanding my revulsion of the chap’s political persuasion (an African Tory? How?), I felt proud that an African who had achieved academic excellence at the best institutions of learning in England was the second most powerful person in the United Kingdom. He had earned the right to sit at the top table of the IMF and lecture other Africans about their uselessness.

Sadly, Kwasi’s days in the sun were few. He now enjoys the distinction of having been the first ever black chancellor, but also the second shortest serving one. Kwasi lasted just over a month as chancellor The only chancellor to have served for a shorter length of time was a Tory called Iain Macleod who was chancellor from 20 June 1970 to 20 July 1970, when his heart found the going too difficult.

I have a friend in King’eero, a world-famous village on the outskirts of Nairobi, who likes to read my scribblings from to time. He insists that Kwasi was set up to fail by the hateful Tories. “Those people are the worst examples of Englishness. They do not like us Africans,” he said. “They gave Kwasi an impossible job to make sure that he failed so disastrously that nobody would ever trust a black man with any power in the world ever again!” I chose not to respond to my friend’s somewhat tendentious reasoning.

I leave you with these thoughts from my King’eero friend. Imagine you are in a poorly constructed, tall building with your leg tied together with your friend. Suddenly you realise that the floor will collapse unless some weight is taken off it. Will throwing your friend out of the window save you from death? This mad woman thinks a seesaw can work with only one person. Good luck to her!”

Gitau

15 October 2022