Kwasi Kwarteng arrived back from Washington on the morning of the 14th of October to discover he had been sacked. He learnt of his removal by Liz Truss when an aide showed him a tweet reporting it. Once inside Number 10, he warned the Prime Minister that “if they come for me, you’ll be next”. “They’re already coming for me, Kwasi”, was her response.
To replace his closest political ally, Truss turned to Jeremy Hunt. Promising a “Dave-and-George-style relationship”, she later held a press conference of only eight minutes to announce Rishi Sunak’s original plan to raise corporation tax to 25 per cent would go ahead. After taking only four questions, she left. Joe Biden labelled her original plans a “mistake”. Hunt began the work of tearing up Trussonomics.
With acknowledgments to Harry Cole and James Heale‘s Out of the Blue: the Inside Story of the Unexpected Rise and Rapid Fall of Liz Truss