Kwasi Kwarteng and Boris Johnson share one obvious trait

We are told that the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, has a brilliant intellect and has been held up throughout his life as among the most intelligent of his peers.

Similarly, the previous prime minister was often described as “highly intelligent” by those who were blinded by his ready wit and classical education.

As well as sharing similar educational backgrounds, they also have one other trait in common. The inability to think ahead, plan carefully, and gauge the consequences of their actions seems to sit alongside their much-vaunted intelligence.

In the case of Kwarteng, the failure to calculate the impact of his ideologically driven tax cuts on public services that have been savaged already by a succession of Tory government blunders austerity measures, exit from the EU, and mismanagement of the pandemic is staggering in its economic and political naivety.

The reliance on a series of U-turns, which was so much a part of the Johnson administration, will be both inevitable and terminally damaging to his political reputation if not his future earning potential. It is to be hoped that the consequences for the chancellor and the current prime minister are similar to those meted out to their recently disgraced predecessor.