Boris Johnson once said that his favorite movie scene is the multiple retaliatory murders at the end of The Godfather. It didn’t take long for the prime minister to avenge his leadership rival, Jeremy Hunt, this week.
The soft Hunt, who is running against Johnson in 2019, is still looking at number 10, and this week called on fellow Conservative MPs to stand up against Johnson because the party “does not give the British people the leadership they deserve”.
The prime minister survived a subsequent no-confidence vote with 211 votes to 148 on Monday, but was severely injured. Hunt, a former foreign minister, would be “anti-Boris”: managerial, immaculately dressed, a little boring.
Some of Johnson’s entourage wondered if the prime minister could try to keep his enemy close by possibly offering Hunt the role of treasurer. But most laughed at the idea: it’s not Johnson’s style.
Instead, Hunt was briefed that the Johnson government had approved hydrocarbon drilling in his bucolic constituency in southwest Surrey, a decision that left conservationists clapping, “Ridiculous.”
The prospect of the village of Dunsfold becoming a minor county of Dallas provoked local apoplexy and was a gift to Hunt’s contenders for the place. That won’t bother Johnson.
Jeremy Richard Strainsham Hunt, 55, has been in Johnson’s line for several years, convinced that at some point Tory MPs will get tired of the prime minister’s chaotic style. Hunt will be the man to put the pieces together.
But some wonder if he wants a high enough job. Colleagues urged him to campaign more aggressively: “In politics, power is not given, it is taken,” said one of the allies.
Hunt lowered his head after Monday’s coup failed. “Jeremy believes that the party will make a decision without the need for help,” said one supporter. “Jeremy says he’s not a natural destabilizer and probably won’t do very well if he tries.
The son of a senior admiral in the Royal Navy and raised in a picturesque village in Surrey, Hunt has a classic accreditation: head of the expensive Charterhouse School, followed by a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford University.
He became an entrepreneur and taught English in Japan for two years; his early business ventures included a failed attempt to export marmalade to the country. His wife, Lucia Guo, is Chinese, although he made a “terrible” blunder when he described her as “Japanese” during his debut visit to Beijing as foreign minister. The couple has a son and two daughters.
He eventually created Hotcourses – which runs websites advertising education around the world – in the 1990s. He met Guo at the Hotcourses event at the University of Warwick and when the company was finally sold in 2017, he made £ 14 million.
Elected in 2005, he fits in well with David Cameron’s new Conservative Party. The right wing in the economy – an ally says Hunt is the “real Thatcher” – he was socially liberal and embraced green issues.
He became Minister of Culture in Cameron’s first cabinet in 2010 under the supervision of the London 2012 Olympic Games, before stepping down to run the British Health Service in an era of austerity. It was a terrible political challenge, but he became Britain’s longest-serving health secretary. Along the way, he met enemies in the NHS – especially after moves to change doctors’ contracts to deal with the problem of high mortality over the weekend.
Nadine Doris, culture minister and Johnson’s loyalist, said this week that Hunt had left the NHS unprepared for Covid and that when the virus struck, he called for tough Chinese-style blocking measures. “Coping with the pandemic would be a disaster,” she said. After leaving the cabinet, his role as chairman of the municipality’s health committee gave him a constant voice on the NHS issues that still concern him.
Hunt campaigned to stay in the EU referendum in 2016, but then – somewhat implausibly – said a year later that he thought Brexit was a good idea after all, after witnessing the “arrogance” of The European Commission in the exit negotiations.
It was a clear sign that he was preparing to run for the top in a party in which being in Brexit is now essential. After becoming foreign minister in Theresa May in 2018 – replacing Johnson, who invaded because of May’s Brexit deal – he had the perfect platform.
After May’s resignation, Hunt faced Johnson a year later to become prime minister. In conversations with party members, his sleek technocratic style contrasts with Johnson’s fickle populism.
But there was a problem. “Every night he came up with the idea that Jeremy had won the debate, but the next morning people couldn’t remember any of him,” admitted a figure in his leadership campaign. In the end, Johnson won a decisive victory.
Johnson offered the defeated Hunt a job in his office as Secretary of Defense, demotion. Hunt refused. “He thought the whole government was going to collapse and he could come in and say ‘I told you so,'” one of the allies said. Others were furious. “Leading the army, navy and air force is never a job you reject, especially not in the Conservative Party,” said a former cabinet minister.
Fans say Hunt is right to avoid a job campaign when there is no vacancy, but that behind the calm, polite appearance is a man of ambition. “It has internal steel, it’s strong,” says one.
Some Tories, especially those in the North of England that Johnson won in the 2019 election, believe the South Hunt itself would be electoral responsibility. “It would be a disaster,” said a Northern Tory MP. “He can’t communicate with my constituents.”
But Andrew Mitchell, a former Tory whip chief, says Hunt will eventually triumph because Tory MPs want three things in a new leader: .
george.parker@ft.com, sebastian.payne@ft.com
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