New UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has appointed his top team, described as a “cabinet for modern Britain”.
Mr Johnson has appointed four full cabinet members from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic, BAME, backgrounds (17%) as well as two ministers who will attend cabinet – a record for any government.
Among them is British-Ghanaian politician, Kwasi Kwarteng who has been appointed Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
He will also be required to attend Cabinet meetings.
Below are some of the newcomers
Ben Wallace
Former security minister
Kwasi Kwarteng
The MP for Spelthorne in Surrey has been seen as a rising star on the right of the party.
Robert Jenrick
Former treasury minister Robert Jenrick joined other rising stars Rishi Sunak and Oliver Dowden in saying Boris Johnson was the only one who could save the Tory party from an “existential threat”.
Robert Buckland
The former solicitor general moved to be prisons minister in the justice department in May 2019. He supported Boris Johnson for the leadership describing him as a “moderate, open-minded, one-nation Conservative” and claiming he is “what we need now”.
Alok Sharma
The former employment minister and MP for Reading West backed Boris Johnson for prime minister.
Alister Jack
Businessman Alister Jack was elected MP for Dumfries and Galloway in 2017 and has supported what he calls “a successful Brexit for Scotland”.
James Cleverly
The MP for Braintree in Essex is widely regarded as one of the party’s rising stars.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Chairman of the European Research Group (ERG), Jacob Rees-Mogg was one of the most outspoken critics of Theresa May’s Brexit policy and has made clear he is a supporter of the no-deal option.
Rishi Sunak
Elected in 2015 as MP for Richmond in Yorkshire, Mr Sunak served as a parliamentary private secretary at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from 2017.
Mark Spencer
Boris Johnson’s new chief enforcer may have a tough task given the government has a slim working majority.
Jo Johnson
Boris Johnson’s younger brother, Jo Johnson, was transport minister in Theresa May’s cabinet, but quit over her Brexit deal, which he said was nothing like what had been promised.
Oliver Dowden
Before being elected as an MP, Mr Dowden worked as a Downing Street adviser for former PM David Cameron and was made his deputy chief of staff.
Jake Berry
Kwasi Kwarteng, whose full name is Alfred Akwasi Addo Kwarteng, was born on 26th May 1975 in Waltham Forest to Ghanaian parents who migrated to the UK from Ghana as students in the 1960s.
Kwarteng is a Conservative Party politician serving as Member of Parliament (MP) for Spelthorne since 2010. Before assuming his new position as Minister of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, Kwasi Kwarteng was the Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Existing the European (DExEU) under the Theresa May led administration.
Kwarteng attended Eton as a King’s Scholar and Newcastle Scholar, before going to the Univerity of Cambridge where he read Classics and History at Trinity College, Cambridge. He attended Harvard University on a Kennedy Scholarship and then earned a PhD in Economic History from the University of Cambridge in 2000.
Before becoming a Member of Parliament, Kwarteng worked as an analyst in financial services. He has written a book, Ghosts of Empire, about the legacy of the British Empire, published by Bloomsbury in 2011. He also co-authored Gridlock Nation with Jonathan Dupont in 2011 about the causes and solutions to traffic congestion in Britain.
