Leader in all but name, only Hunt can save Tory credibility
BRITAIN has just embarked on a novel political experiment. For centuries we have had a constitutional monarchy, where the Crown has been stripped of any real power.
Now, in the wake of the crisis that has engulfed the Tory government, we have a constitutional premiership. Beleaguered Liz Truss is the Prime Minister in name only. She neither dominates the Cabinet nor controls its agenda.
All authority now lies with her Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, who succeeded the hapless Kwasi Kwarteng last Friday in one of the most tumultuous episodes in modern politics. Hunt is far more than just a new face at the Treasury. Given the prime importance of economic policy and the shattered credibility of Truss, he is effectively the leader of our country. It is his approach that will make or break the current administration.
Already he has shown that he could be the right man for this daunting job. In his broadcast interviews since he took office, he has exuded both reassurance and a mastery of his brief.
CONFRONTED with economic turmoil, he has been frank about the scale of the challenge and the toughness of the decisions he will have to take.
“It’s going to be very, very difficult and I think we have to be honest with people about that,” he said yesterday. Such candour is a refreshing contrast to the robotic sloganeering of Truss and the ill-judged bombast of Kwarteng.
Apart from his manner, Hunt also brings heavyweight experience, pragmatism and judgement to his role. In an age of professional politicians, he is one of the few MPs who has been an accomplished entrepreneur. In previous governments, he was in charge of the Foreign Office, the Department of Culture and the Health Ministry, always a difficult portfolio for a Conservative given Labour’s proprietorial attitude to the NHS.
Yet even at a time of austerity, Hunt held that post with great skill, winning extra funds and successfully taking on the junior doctors in a lengthy dispute over pay. It is an indicator of his commitment that in 2018 he became the longest-serving health secretary in history.
For the formidable task that lies ahead, he will need all his assets, as well as a spirit of public service. When he was health secretary, Hunt discreetly carried out regular shifts as a hospital volunteer.
Given the extent of the financial turmoil, his willingness to become Chancellor is a further act of altruism, especially because he will become the focus for deepening unpopularity as taxes go up and expenditure is cut in the quest to balance the books. Already, he has announced that he will ditch most of the misnamed “Growth Plan” devised by Kwarteng and Truss, including the freeze in corporation tax. The proposed penny off the basic rate of income tax may also go as Hunt warned, “I’m not taking anything off the table.”
Many Trussites and Rightwingers are outraged, claiming that he has no mandate for this reversal. Some wail about “a bloodless coup”. Others shriek about “an assault on the Right”. But these ideologues have brought this on their own heads with the doomed gamble of the “mini-Budget”, featuring massive unfunded tax cuts that spooked the markets. Their responsibility for the current mess means that they do not deserve to be heard.
As he prepares his crucial financial statement for presentation on 31 October, Hunt should be given the chance to win back some credibility for his party.Tory MPs should unite behind him rather than indulging in the monumental distraction of more plotting, no matter how weak it makes Truss look.
YET another leadership contest would only heap more ridicule on the party, but such an event could not easily be avoided if Truss goes. There is no obvious “unity” candidate. In their current dysfunctional form, the Tories’ only hope is in Hunt.That makes him uniquely powerful.
There have been other Cabinet Ministers who greatly overshadowed their bosses. Sir William Harcourt as Chancellor did so in the short-lived ministry of Lord Rosebery in 189495. Neville Chamberlain was the dominant force in the first National Government of 1931 led by increasingly enfeebled Ramsay MacDonald, while from 1995 Michael Heseltine, as deputy prime minister, was a much bigger figure than the discredited John Major.
But none of them wielded the domestic influence Hunt now has. The Conservatives should be grateful that Truss, through her own errors, has been forced to put him at the helm.
‘Ideologues brought this on their own heads with the mini-Budget’