The Conservative party is no stranger to comebacks, but there was something particularly curious about Jeremy Hunt’s return from the political wilderness this week.
Our new chancellor, lauded as a Conservative party “big beast”, is no stranger to the Cabinet table; under Cameron, he served as culture secretary and then health secretary, before taking charge at the foreign office under Theresa May. But foreign secretary was Hunt’s last government post. This was over three years ago and it feels far longer.
Hunt’s vanquishing at the hands of Boris Johnson in 2019 saw the experienced moderate offered the defence brief. But the man dubbed “Theresa in Trousers” (or TiT) snubbed the incoming PM, opting for a stay on the backbenches where he could jibe, scrutinise and bother.
Almost overnight, Hunt transformed from Cabinet journeyman to Tory Grandee. Soon he could be heard, intermittently, challenging Matt Hancock as Chair of the Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee.
But ever-patient and always ambitious, the former foreign secretary was waiting to pick up from the mess of Boris Johnson’s premiership. Hunt has always refused to suggest his leadership ambitions were over.
As Johnson’s time as PM came to a close, Hunt’s name was regularly mentioned among those preparing for a leadership challenge. Yet when the time came, this time Hunt won the support of only a handful of MPs — 18 in all. Centrist Tories opted either for Tom Tugendhat, Rishi Sunak or the politically malleable Penny Mordaunt.
After dropping out, Britain’s longest-serving health secretary was in a reflective mood: “It’s become obvious to me you only get one big shot at this, and I had mine in 2019”. Hours after his prime ministerial dream was shattered, Hunt threw his weight behind Sunak — arguing that the former chancellor was “one of the most decent, straight people” he had ever met in Westminster.
As champion of “one-nation” Conservatism, Hunt nonetheless retained the respect of plenty of colleagues within the parliamentary party. While few seriously thought that Hunt could stage a successful political comeback, one-nation MPs, feeling increasingly nostalgic for the Cameron days, nonetheless admired the former businessman’s social liberalism.
But then Friday happened.
Hunt has now been brought in from the cold by Truss, in a serious coup for the on-his-way-out grandee. Self-consciously playing into his “Theresa in Trousers’” reputation, Truss billed her new treasury lead on Friday as “one of the most experienced and widely respected government ministers and parliamentarians”. Truss thinks that Hunt’s grey, slightly wooden persona can help soften her appeal among MPs.
But Hunt’s boringness notwithstanding, there may be another motivation for promoting the one-time Culture Secretary — a darling of the conservative “one-nation” clique. Ultimately, this is not just party management by the prime minister, but a last-ditch attempt at survival.
This week, an acrimonious meeting between Truss and the 1922 Committee of backbenchers sparked a tirade of anonymous criticism. In the aftermath, reports emerged that senior backbenchers were holding talks with a view to replacing Liz Truss with a joint ticket of Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt.
One senior MP said: “Rishi’s people [and] Penny’s people … who realise she’s a disaster need to sit down together and work out who the unity candidate is”. A “council of elders” is apparently being corralled to tell Truss to quit. “Conversations are stepping up,” said one former minister.
Under the rules of the 1922 Committee, the prime minister cannot face a confidence vote until she has been in office for a year. However, in practice, if enough backers of Sunak and Mordaunt pressure Sir Graham Brady rules can be changed.
Sunak and Mordaunt are far from short of support among the Conservative parliamentary party. In the Conservative leadership contest held just a few months ago, Sunak garnered the support of 137 MPs in the fifth ballot, whereas Mordaunt garnered 105. Combined, their total dwarfs Liz Truss’ showing of 113.
Nor is a “joint ticket” an entirely alien phenomenon to Conservative MPs. Jeremy Hunt stood as the better half of a combined run with Esther Mcvey in the 2022 contest. And back in 2016, Sajid Javid and Stephen Crabb teamed up in a short-lived attempt to usurp the Tory crown.
A successful Sunak-Mordaunt plot is hence far from an impossibility — and reports of scheming among supporters continued well into Friday morning.
It is surely no coincidence that just as conversations stepped up among backbench MPs, the prime minister summoned Kwarteng back to Downing Street and read the ex-chancellor his last rites.
For the appointment of Jeremy Hunt complicates the plan to install Sunak and Mordaunt in a number of ways.
After Friday’s events, another new Chancellor later this year, in the form of either Sunak or Mordaunt, would be the fifth within five months. This, combined with a potential fifth PM in as many years, would seriously buttress the calls for an early election.
Additionally, Hunt’s appointment will bolster his prestige among the parliamentary party significantly. As of Friday, the former foreign secretary has held two out of the four great offices of state — putting Hunt in the perfect position to dictate terms to a weakened PM. Given this, Sunak-Mordaunt plotters would surely now have to consider Hunt in any unity Cabinet, likely complicating the smoothness of a Sunak-Mordaunt transition.
In the end, Hunt may end up proving more difficult to dislodge than Truss.
With Kwarteng presented as a sacrificial lamb, the sense of urgency to install Sunak and Mordaunt may well be lessened. The organisationally savvy and ambitious among Truss’ MPs will find Hunt’s “safe pair of hands” reputation difficult to explain away.
Although Truss is far from safe yet, this subtle hijacking of the burgeoning Sunak-Mordaunt plot shows the PM still has a few tricks up her sleeve.
But boring and “safe” though he is, only time will tell whether Hunt has what it takes to pull Truss’ ailing premiership back together. Indeed, if the “hard-nosed businessman” does not quiet the markets and reel back the uncertainty, Hunt may end up sharing Truss’ fiscal baggage.
The Sunak-Mordaunt plotters will be waiting in the wings.
