Since he was defeated by Boris Johnson in the 2019 Conservative leadership contest, Jeremy Hunt has had a quieter life as a backbench MP. He has campaigned for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe from custody in Iran and has been an effective and interventionist chairman of the Health Select Committee, often calling out his own party over inadequacies in their response to the Covid crisis and NHS funding. But could he now be preparing for another shot at the top job?
Now that partygate looks increasingly likely to lead to a change of leader, Hunt has told the House magazine that: ‘I won’t say my ambition has completely vanished, but it would take a lot to persuade me to put my hat into the ring.’
There are more twists ahead in the current administration’s travails
As the Prime Minister’s nemesis Dominic Cummings tweeted:
‘[This] is SW1 code for: leadership contest is imminent, sign up early if you want a seat in Cabinet, am on phone to donors and getting office set up, there has to be one non-Brexit nutter in last two’.
Hunt is one of the few high-profile members of the Tory party who could be said to have had ‘a good pandemic’.
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