Jeremy Hunt: softly-spoken survivor takes on hardest role

Issued on: 14/10/2022 – 16:28Modified: 14/10/2022 – 16:26

London (AFP) – Newly appointed UK finance minister Jeremy Hunt is a mild-mannered political survivor who will require all of his considerable experience to calm an economy and government beset by chaos.

Hunt, 55, was health minister under David Cameron, and foreign minister under Theresa May, but found himself on the sidelines after Boris Johnson defeated him to become party leader in 2019.

After another failed leadership attempt this year following Johnson’s demise, Hunt suddenly finds himself thrust into the heart of the economic and political storm.

Under-pressure Prime Minister Liz Truss called him “one of the most experienced and widely respected government ministers and parliamentarians”.

“He will drive our mission to go for growth, including taking forward the supply-side reforms that our country needs,” she said on Friday.

Hunt hails from the centre of the Conservative Party, and his appointment indicates Truss wants to appease those MPs already plotting to remove her after her tax-cutting budget sparked market chaos.

He saw unbroken cabinet service from the Tory election victory in 2010 to his leadership defeat in 2019.

In government, he oversaw the London 2012 Olympics, was Britain’s longest-serving health secretary and proved a steady pair of hands as the UK’s top diplomat.

A supporter of remaining in the EU, Hunt was relegated to the backbenches when pro-Brexit Johnson took charge, although he was chair of the influential Health and Social Care Select Committee, which sought to hold the government to account during the pandemic.

However, he was also criticised for his pandemic planning while health chief.

As the culture, media and sport minister, he was under intense pressure to resign in 2012 over his contacts with Rupert Murdoch during a phone-hacking scandal involving the mogul’s media empire.

However, Hunt toughed it out and the judge-led inquiry into press ethics exonerated him of bias towards Murdoch’s News Corporation in its bid to take over broadcaster BSkyB.

Surrey, Oxford and Japan

Hunt was promoted to health secretary, one of the hardest jobs in cabinet at the time, as the government implemented long-lasting austerity measures in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis.

Hundreds of thousands of National Health Service workers went on strike in 2014 for the first time in 32 years following Hunt’s rejection of an across-the-board pay rise.

But he remained in the role as May took charge following the 2016 vote to leave the EU, only leaving when Johnson quit the Foreign Office in July 2018 over May’s Brexit policy.

As foreign secretary, Hunt set up the Yemen peace talks.

Born on November 1, 1966, Hunt is the eldest son of Admiral Nicholas Hunt, who was the fleet commander-in-chief from 1985 to 1987, one of the highest positions in the Royal Navy.

Hunt grew up in Godalming, southwest of London, and now represents the local South West Surrey constituency in parliament.

He was educated at Charterhouse, a prestigious private school.

Hunt went on to Oxford University, where he first became politically active as president of the Conservative Association, and was a contemporary of Johnson and Cameron.

He graduated with a first in philosophy, politics and economics.

Big Rice

After university, Hunt worked as a management consultant and later an English language teacher in Japan. He now speaks fluent Japanese.

Hunt had a successful career as an entrepreneur.

He set up Hotcourses, which puts prospective students in touch with universities and colleges.

Selling his stake made him a sterling multi-millionaire. He was elected to parliament in 2005.

He served as the Conservatives’ culture, media and sport spokesman in opposition then took over the brief as secretary of state when his party took office in 2010.

He is married to Lucia, who is from China. They have a son and two daughters.

They first met via Hotcourses as she was a Warwick University student recruiter. They married within a year in 2009.

She told The Mail on Sunday newspaper that he calls her “Precious” and she calls him “Big Rice” — based on her grandmother’s mispronunciation of Jeremy.

“He is kind, he is always generous, he cares about his family and he is very strong,” she said.

Shortly after being made foreign secretary, Hunt made perhaps his biggest blunder when he accidentally called his wife Japanese, on a visit to China.

© 2022 AFP