What was claimed
A letter sent by Prime Minister Liz Truss to Kwasi Kwarteng is actually signed by Kwarteng himself.
Our verdict
Mr Kwarteng’s name does appear below Ms Truss’s signature, but this appears to be the convention for such letters.
A letter from the Prime Minister wasn’t mistakenly signed by Kwasi Kwarteng
20 October 2022
Following Kwasi Kwarteng’s sacking as Chancellor of the Exchequer, a number of journalists and political commentators claimed that the Prime Minister Liz Truss’s letter to Mr Kwarteng had mistakenly been signed by Mr Kwarteng, or included his name underneath Ms Truss’s signature.
It’s true that “The Right Honourable Kwasi Kwarteng MP” appears below the Prime Minister’s signature, rather than her own title, as might be expected.
However, this follows the same format as other similar official letters written by other Prime Ministers.
For example, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s letter accepting the resignation of his own chancellor, Rishi Sunak on 5 July 2022 also featured Mr Sunak’s name underneath Mr Johnson’s signature.
Mr Johnson’s letter accepting the resignation of Sajid Javid as health secretary also followed the same format.
Although it’s worth noting that in all these examples, the letters of resignation themselves do not.
As for the signature itself, this is Ms Truss’s, as shown in other letters she has signed, and not Mr Kwarteng’s, as appears on his own letter of resignation.
While this has since been clarified, similar claims have been circulating on Facebook.
Image courtesy of Simon Dawson
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as missing context because Mr Kwarteng’s name does appear below Ms Truss’s signature, but this appears to be the convention for such letters.