This is Jeremy Hunt, the man who canceled almost all of the Prime Minister’s plans

Britain’s new finance minister, Jeremy Hunt, thought he could one day get rich by exporting British marmalade to Japan. A somewhat chauvinistic error. Sweet and sour items, popular in Great Britain, are usually less popular abroad. However, it does characterize Hunt’s bold nature. Just like he looks beyond national borders. Hunt, who is married to a woman from China and father of three, has argued forcefully in the Brexit debate to keep the UK in the EU.

Hunt, 55, had just returned from Japan at the time of Project Marmalade, where he was studying English in the early 1990s. He was an admirer of recently resigned Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He started more companies, failed several times, but did not give up. He eventually made his fortune with Hotcourses. He founded that company, an online database of international studies, in 1996 with his childhood friend. They sold him in 2017. He made Hunt a millionaire.

He entered parliament in 2005. From 2010 he became a minister. First, culture and sports. In this position he was responsible for organizing the London 2012 Olympic Games. He then spent six years – almost an eternity by modern British standards – as Minister of Health. Prime Minister Theresa May elected him as Foreign Minister between 2018 and 2019.

A controversial donation to his campaign coffers

After the fall of May 2019, technocrat Hunt faced the flamboyant and personal Boris Johnson in the race to lead the Conservative Party. Hunt lost out without a chance and also lost his credibility over a controversial donation to his campaign treasury by a confidant of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He was offered the position of Defense Minister after his loss, but he refused.

Hunt took a step back, though he remained a Member of Parliament. Maybe he waited patiently for his chance, maybe it surprised him. Anyway, the opportunity came. Because his technocratic image is suddenly worth gold. After all the political chaos that Johnson and Liz Truss have caused this year, many see Hunt as someone who can bring peace. He also finds himself ideologically at the heart of the deeply divided Conservative Party.

abbreviation for prime minister

And he is truly a classic conservative: the son of an admiral, a graduate of an expensive private school, studying philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford, president of the Conservative Students’ Union there, a self-made millionaire.

On Monday, Hunt, the fourth Conservative chancellor in four months, ignored nearly all of the tax cuts Truss wanted. It also shortened the period for which the British government intervenes to keep energy prices low: from two full years to just the next few months until April.

This makes Truss’ position as prime minister precarious. The question is whether Hunt, who briefly failed to campaign last summer in the party leadership battle, may have found a shortcut to the premiership after all.

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