Kwasi Kwarteng is at the wheel of the mini-Budget like a boy racer who can’t believe his luck

Like many a joy rider, Kwarteng’s boundless self-confidence and bravado far outstrips his actual skills as a driver

Watching Kwasi Kwarteng leaning hard into his growth argument – hoarse and at times gabbling his way through his budget-that-isn’t-a-budget – I wondered what he reminded me of.

Then, with all his talk of “unleashing” economic potential and “unshackling the creative energies” of the UK I realised: a boy racer who suddenly finds himself in charge of a supercar, and really can’t believe his luck. And, like many a joyrider, Kwarteng’s boundless self-confidence and bravado far outstrips his actual skills as a driver.

You get the impression that Kwarteng can be a bit arrogant at times and – clever as he surely is – he isn’t quite as smart as he thinks he is.

Kwarteng’s speech was all about growth, you see – investment, productivity, the City – but also the seemingly exponential expansion in the size of his ego. It’s really quite dangerous, his self-belief: you don’t want to be a passenger when he’s in the driving seat.

Think about it: down at the Department for Business, only a matter of weeks ago, Kwarteng was slumming it in the automotive equivalent of a Citroen Saxo with a Halfords body kit and a loose exhaust – noisy but underpowered, futile and there purely to be laughed at. How he resented Dishy Rishi in his sleek machines.

As chancellor of the exchequer, things are very different. Now it’s Kwasi’s turn. No wonder the new chancellor gripped the despatch box as if he were Max Verstappen grappling with the steering wheel on the winning lap in Monaco.

You can imagine Kwarteng’s excitement: buttons everywhere, paddles to move through the economic gears with a touch of the fingers, and switches scattered all around the cockpit to do lots of exciting, go-faster things that, well, you really shouldn’t mess around with unless you know what you’re doing.

Most chancellors only gingerly poke around with these, pushing a dial a little this way or that, squeezing the throttle with some tenderness, and never tampering with the “Treasury Orthodoxy” stability controls. Kwarteng? He just couldn’t help himself.

The dial marked “OBR” with its funny graphics and red lights was chucked out of the window – who needs to know how fast they’re going? As if out of a sense of juvenile curiosity, almost every tax cut dial was switched to max, the bankers’ bonus lever pulled down to deliver max power – and KK stamped on the gas.

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He knows there are still some brakes in the Kwarteng Racer Mk 1, such as the Bank of England’s habit of applying interest rate increases when it senses Kwarteng is about to collide with economic reality, but he’s got his track team working on a plan to disable that useless mechanism.

There were a few backstreet drivers such as Rachel Reeves and Mel Stride in the Commons urging caution as Speed Demon Kwarteng went into another bend in his argument far too fast, but, with a glance at his racey co-driver and navigator, Liz “The Disgrace” Truss, he just ploughed on towards the blue horizon.

He even said at one point he was taking the country to the “promised land”. It looks rather like an inflationary ditch, from where the rest of us are standing.