What a year it’s been for Jeremy Hunt. Just four months ago, he was running to be Tory leader on a platform of lower taxes. Back then he was urging his party to cancel Rishi Sunak’s planned rise in corporation tax and instead reduce the rate from 19 per cent to 15 per cent. Now of course it is Sunak in No. 10, with Hunt next door hiking the tax up to 25 per cent next April.
Such tax rises have, unsurprisingly, alienated much of the Tory right, including Hunt’s erstwhile ally Esther McVey. As Christopher Montgomery of the Critic notes, back in July Hunt wanted to make the Brexiteer his deputy PM as the pair would ‘be a formidable campaigning team.’ He told the BBC’s Sunday morning programme:
I recognise that the leader of a political party has to win elections, and that means a broad appeal. So just as Tony Blair had John Prescott to broaden his appeal as his deputy prime minister, I will have Esther McVey as my deputy prime minister.
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