No one wants Jeremy Hunt to be Chancellor. Labour doesn’t, obviously — the party has its own candidate, albeit with largely the same spending plans and fiscal rules. Rishi Sunak doesn’t — he wants to be his own finance minister. The Tory Right still pines for Truss-onomics, the SNP doesn’t support any UK chancellor, while the Lib Dems are oddly the closest, in that they desire Hunt’s South West Surrey seat.
Chancellors aren’t predisposed to popularity, what with the public finances to safeguard. Still, Hunt has a boyish optimism about him. No one else thinks the Conservatives, having presided over the biggest tax-raising parliament on record and falling living standards, are 2p off National Insurance away from turning round a 20-point polling deficit. But try telling him that.
