Key allies

Tory leadership frontrunner’s potential economic team

Kwasi Kwarteng

The son of Ghanaian migrants, Mr Kwarteng, 47, was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge – where he was part of a University Challenge winning team – and went on to study at Harvard. He has a doctorate in economic history from Cambridge. Before entering Parliament in 2010 as the MP for Spelthorne in Surrey, Mr Kwarteng worked as a financial analyst for Jpmorgan Chase and as a columnist for The Daily Telegraph.

Jacob Rees-Mogg

The Minister of State for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency, who is 53, is another old Etonian who was educated at Oxford and was president of the university’s Conservative Association. The son of the late Times newspaper editor William Rees-mogg, he was given a strict Catholic upbringing and was raised by the family’s nanny Veronica Crook, who remains nanny to his six children to this day.

Sir John Redwood

A veteran of Sir John Major’s government as Welsh secretary in the mid-90s, Sir John, 71, twice stood for the Tory leadership without success. In 1995 when Major urged his critics to “put up or shut up”, Sir John forced a leadership election but was easily beaten by Major. He stood again in 1997 when the Major administration fell to New Labour, in a contest won by Lord Hague. Sir John is a lifelong Eurosceptic and advocate of low taxation.

Simon Clarke

The current Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Clarke, 37, has only been an MP since 2017 but is already in his third ministerial role, having worked as a junior Treasury minister and local government minister before Boris Johnson promoted him to his current job last year. Born and raised in Middlesbrough, he studied at Oxford, where, like Mr Rees-mogg, he was president of the university’s Conservative Association.