In recent years, Bill Gates held a roundtable discussion to which Kwasi Kwarteng was invited as a senior minister.
The billionaire was hosting the meeting, surrounded by high-profile guests. But according to observers, when Kwarteng turned up, he began to act as if he was the one in charge of the meeting “offering his opinion on everything” and “lecturing” Gates about the businessman’s own expert subject. It was “bizarre and embarrassing” to watch, according to one person with knowledge of the episode.
A tendency to arrogance – but also undoubted cleverness – is a common theme that many people who have worked with the new chancellor seem to report. This was the case even among fellow Tories, before he angered them with his politically and economically explosive mini-budget.
One former cabinet minister who worked with Kwarteng as business secretary described him as having “the concentration span of a gnat” and an inability to sit through anything other than very short meetings. “He was never remotely interested in other people’s point of view,” the former minister said.
“I found him very odd to deal with … but there is an intellectual arrogance about Kwasi and Liz [Truss] and Jacob [Rees-Mogg] and those four to five people at the top. They genuinely do think they are cleverer than anyone else and that other people’s views are slightly tiresome.” » | Rowena Mason and Aubrey Allegretti | Saturday, October 1, 2022
