JEREMY HUNT: Liz Truss known as me right into a boudoir she’d created in No 10 and advised me she needed to surrender. I recommended her to head temporarily – and gave her an ungainly hug…

A message from an unrecognised quantity jumped out at me from my telephone: ‘Liz Truss here. Please can you give me a call.’ Was the Prime Minister in point of fact seeking to touch me? Surely no longer. It was once mid-October 2022 and he or she were in Downing Street for somewhat over a month.

Having attempted and did not turn into Conservative chief for the 3rd time that summer time, soundly crushed within the first spherical of vote casting, I used to be coming to phrases with existence at the again benches and was once in a at ease Brussels lodge on a promotion excursion for a ebook I had simply written at the NHS.

After just about a decade within the Cabinet – as Foreign Secretary, Health Secretary and Culture Secretary – I used to be additionally seeking to be a greater dad.

My first response to the message was once disbelief. I shouted out to my spouse, Lucia: ‘Someone just tried to message me pretending to be Liz Truss. I can’t consider how naive other people assume I’m. It’s most probably a radio display host attempting a hoax name.’

I omitted the message and we went downstairs for breakfast. I had French toast.

Then we went again to our room to get in a position for some sightseeing. But on my telephone had been two extra messages. One was once from a pal asking if I knew that No 10 was once seeking to get involved. Another textual content from any other unrecognised quantity requested me to name ‘No 10 switch’.

I used to be nonetheless too suspicious to name again at the quantity given however controlled to discover a other one in my contacts and rang on that. Gingerly, I advised the operator that it was once most probably a hoax, however I had gained a message asking me to talk to the Prime Minister.

‘No, it’s no longer a hoax, she does wish to discuss to you,’ the operator answered. ‘But I’m afraid she’s at the different line. Can we name you again?’

Within seconds the Prime Minister magically changed into to be had. I used to be put thru.

Liz Truss and I had by no means been shut politically. She had no longer supported any of my makes an attempt to turn into chief, nor had I subsidized her in that summer time’s sour management contest towards Rishi Sunak.

But, on a private degree, family members had all the time been cordial. I revered her ballsiness and he or she was once all the time a laugh corporate. When she changed into Foreign Secretary beneath Boris Johnson, she invited me in to pick out my brains, a courtesy no longer all the time noticed through others. But this was once a distinct and reasonably shorter dialog.

Her top ministership was once in hassle after a debatable tax-cutting ‘mini-Budget’ that had long gone down badly with the monetary establishments. The pound was once in freefall. She began through pronouncing issues weren’t sustainable.

I reduce to the chase: ‘So how do you want me to help?’ She answered with one phrase: ‘Chancellor.’ Suddenly, the telephone in my hand felt so scorching I sought after to drop it. Blimey, I assumed, this was once no longer what I used to be anticipating. Unbelievable.

She was once at pains to mention that I used to be her first selection to switch Kwasi Kwarteng. She will have questioned if I had learn Press hypothesis that she would provide the activity to Sajid Javid. I didn’t care within the slightest. I thanked her and requested for part an hour to take into accounts it. Then I put the telephone down and leapt within the air. ‘She’s introduced me Chancellor,’ I stated to Lucia.

We considered it in somewhat of a daze. The Chancellor has the second one maximum tough activity in govt and lives in Downing Street. Being introduced the put up is a gigantic honour. But, after the disastrous ‘mini-Budget’, if ever there was once a poisoned chalice it was once this. I didn’t have a lot self assurance that Liz Truss would final. I might be the shortest-serving Chancellor in historical past.

On the opposite hand, top ministers in problem can live to tell the tale a very long time, as I had learnt from Theresa May. Maybe, even in a little while, I may push thru some excellent issues.

It can be an journey for my children, elderly 8, ten and 12, to are living in Downing Street – one of the well-known addresses within the nation – even in short

For the former two years I were chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, and were campaigning to extend the selection of docs and nurses we teach as a part of a brand new long-term staff plan for the NHS. The Treasury had blocked it. If not anything else, possibly, I may push that thru?

Then there was once the circle of relatives. It can be an journey for my children, elderly 8, ten and 12, to are living in Downing Street – one of the well-known addresses within the nation – even in short. But, for the reason that reasonably traumatising junior docs strike a number of years previous, I were promising Lucia that I’d surrender frontline politics.

Despite that, I had agreed to be Foreign Secretary, and he or she had dropped the entirety (together with her activity) to improve me. I even ran towards Boris Johnson to be chief of the birthday party and Prime Minister, once more together with her unstinting improve. I felt just like the political embodiment of St Augustine’s prayer: ‘Lord make me chaste – but not yet.’

So I questioned how Lucia would really feel about a fair larger problem, no longer least one involving the upheaval of shifting. I needn’t have nervous. As all the time, when confronted with my greatest demanding situations, she was once all in.

So, after simply 20 mins, I known as Liz Truss again and approved. I had embarked at the greatest problem of my existence – introduced in to confront chaos and disorder on the center of the British state.

I had quite a lot of revel in in govt however none of my roles were in an economics or industry portfolio. As anyone who likes to plot meticulously for all probabilities, I used to be in a no-man’s land. I had no concept how it might end up.

On the teach on our as far back as London, I used to be known as through an reputable from the Cabinet Office for the usual pre-appointment assessments. I needed to transfer to the noisy hall between carriages in order to not be overheard. As we went throughout the Channel Tunnel, the road reduce out, making the moved quickly procedure much more farcical.

An hour after arriving at our house in Pimlico, I had was a go well with and was once on my method to Downing Street. After assembly the Prime Minister within the Cabinet Room, I walked out of No 10 and was once advised to move throughout the arch in opposition to the Foreign Office to offer the Press photographers the chance for photos.

Our first problem was once a black hollow. An actual black hollow, no longer one fabricated to create a political narrative (Rachel Reeves, please word). And it was once £72billion

Then I climbed right into a automotive to shuttle the princely distance of 200 yards to my new place of work in His Majesty’s Treasury.

Treasury officers are essentially the most feared in Whitehall. Fearsomely difficult negotiators, they’re the a part of govt whose activity is to mention no. But, head to head, I discovered them somewhat other. They had been suave, respectable, desperate to lend a hand and cherished a excellent debate. They demonstrated an abundance of a very powerful high quality wanted in any civil servant: telling you precisely what they in point of fact assume. As I sat spherical the massive assembly room desk within the Chancellor’s place of work, I discovered they had been strangely open to new concepts.

It didn’t really feel like a cult adhering to ‘Treasury orthodoxy’.

But I additionally sensed concern. Kwasi, the former Chancellor, had taken the rap for a Budget that had long gone incorrect. The Treasury was once within the highlight as an establishment. The economic system, for which it was once accountable, was once teetering at the verge of collapse. And their new boss – me –was once a whole newbie.

I determined to position them at their ease. ‘Let me start by saying this,’ I stated. ‘We are going to do whatever is right for the country. Even if it means I am a Ken Clarke Chancellor who makes the right decisions but ends up leaving a strong economy for his opponents to inherit.’ Little did I know the way painfully on the subject of the reality my phrases would finally end up.

Our first problem was once a black hollow. An actual black hollow, no longer one fabricated to create a political narrative (Rachel Reeves, please word). And it was once £72billion. That equated to greater than 2 in step with cent of GDP, or 15p on source of revenue tax. Sorting it might require ‘consolidation’ – an economist’s euphemism for tax rises and spending cuts. I’d finally end up imposing one of the crucial greatest public finance ‘consolidations’ ever.

Officials offered me to what they known as a ‘scorecard’. It was once a double-sided piece of A3 paper with a desk on one facet detailing about £1trillion of presidency spending and any other desk at the different facet laying out the similar £1trillion in tax receipts. Or if truth be told much less, which was once why we had a black hollow. Every quantity at the desk was once one billion. If it stated ‘13,502’ that was once £13.502billion. Tucked away on the backside of the again web page was once the quantity that in point of fact mattered – the space between forecast tax receipts and forecast spending.

For two years my existence would revolve round getting that quantity down. We additionally had fiscal laws designed to reassure the markets through proscribing borrowing. A £72billion black hollow blew the ones laws out of the water. Indeed, it had spooked the markets such a lot that my predecessor had misplaced his activity.

I had no concept how we had been going to search out that £72billion however I knew we would wish radical and painful surgical procedure. Tinkering over the abnormal hundred million would no longer reduce it.

But even ahead of I had an answer, I come what may had to reassure monetary markets and the general public that we’d act responsibly. So despite the fact that day after today was once a Saturday, I launched into a painful set of media interviews.

In the Today programme inexperienced room, I brushed previous actress Miriam Margolyes. She went on air to mention she had needed me good fortune however had in point of fact sought after to mention: ‘F*** you, you bastard.’

I were given a grovelling apology from the BBC, even if I later learnt they privately congratulated her. In the grander scheme of items, it was once a tiny factor. But it confirmed how prime feelings had been operating. People had been scared.

We had been running at the assumption that the markets wanted a brand new set of plans to be introduced temporarily, in a question of days.

The Prime Minister had invited me and the circle of relatives to lunch at Chequers to speak about this in additional element. I considered what I will have to advise her. I additionally needed to get my head spherical some extraordinarily complicated monetary marketplace problems. I had run a small industry however that was once about as shut because it were given.

Around me, then again, I had a Treasury A-team of economists with double firsts. So I determined to apply a easy rule: if I didn’t perceive what they had been pronouncing, I’d inform them. Luckily, they had been all the time glad to give an explanation for – they wanted the Chancellor to understand what the hell he was once doing.

I also referred to as a couple of ex-Chancellors for his or her recommendation. I spoke to Philip Hammond, Sajid Javid and George Osborne.

Saj advised me I will have to concern in regards to the prime degree of volatility within the markets, in particular after they opened on Monday morning. Robert Jenrick messaged me to mention the similar factor.

Like me, they had been nervous through a mounting sense of chaos following a poorly gained Press convention the Prime Minister had given. She had introduced an additional U-turn on her mini-Budget through scrapping its company tax reduce, however the best way the announcement got here throughout supposed it backfired.

I held a convention name with James Bowler, the highest reputable on the Treasury, and his leader economist Clare Lombardelli, and in combination we concluded we had to head off the danger of markets plummeting through making a statement early on Monday.

It would say somewhat merely that we had been reversing just about the entire measures in Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget. But would the Prime Minister agree?

Back on the Hunt house, there was once large pleasure about going to Chequers for lunch. The youngsters dressed up of their Sunday highest for his or her first ever consult with to the Prime Minister’s historical nation area.

In the automobile, my ten-year-old daughter Anna entertained our new crew of police coverage officials through mimicking other accents, one in every of her specialities.

On arrival I sat down privately with the Prime Minister. To her credit score, she totally understood the dangers we confronted. She advised me I had absolute freedom to do what was once important – and he or she was once as excellent as her phrase. We agreed that I’d make a public commentary the following morning and any other in Parliament within the afternoon. The subsequent morning, I sat at the back of my emblem new Chancellor’s table as I introduced the reversal of the mini-Budget and that ‘the United Kingdom will always pay its way’.

The commentary was once neatly gained through the markets. In the House of Commons, the reception was once extra blended since the Conservatives had been in surprise and Labour was once baying for blood.

Then on Tuesday got here my first Cabinet assembly as Chancellor. We nonetheless had that large black hollow, so I had determined I’d ask each and every division for cuts, with plans to be delivered through the top of the week.

I stuck the Prime Minister for a minute previously and advised her that’s what I had to do. Again, she didn’t demur.

I used to be the final to take my seat on the Cabinet desk. As I regarded round, the hostility was once palpable. Many had been somewhat tribal of their allegiance, no longer simply to the Conservative Party however to their wing of the birthday party. I used to be no longer ‘their kind’ of Conservative and there was once deep resentment that the mini-Budget gamble had misfired.

There was once no chance of placating them, so I didn’t take a look at. I stated that each and every division would wish to ship me eventualities of 10 in step with cent and 15 in step with cent cuts of their price range. One let loose an audible groan and attacked me for appointing 4 bankers as advisers. I answered that, of all occasions, now was once a second we had to get recommendation from ‘outside the Blob’.

Back within the Treasury, assembly after assembly came about to bridge the £72billion hollow. After the mini-Budget reversals, we had were given it all the way down to £40billion however there was once a protracted method to cross to fulfill our fiscal laws.

By the top of Wednesday that week, the scorecard nonetheless confirmed a £10billion hole.

We had raised each and every invisible tax, reduce discretionary spending programmes, imposed painful long term cuts on ‘unprotected departments’ – in different phrases the rest except for the NHS and faculties. We controlled to search out extra money for those two and a large build up for social care, which I had lengthy nervous about.

I despatched the crew away to search out £4billion extra tax will increase and £4billion extra spending cuts in a single day. Nuts.

When I met Conservative backbenchers on the 1922 Committee later that day, I were given a shockingly supportive reception. Maybe they had been rallying round in a disaster. Maybe they had been thankful for my brutal honesty.

More most likely, I assumed wistfully, it’s as a result of I had introduced I didn’t wish to be Prime Minister. You’re by no means extra favored than if you find yourself out of the race.

The subsequent day I had a gathering with Liz Truss. It were scheduled as a gathering with officers however a message got here thru that she sought after to peer me on my own. I knew one thing was once up. We went right into a boudoir she had created simply off the Cabinet Room, the place there was once area for little greater than a settee and two armchairs.

‘I don’t assume it’s sustainable,’ she advised me for the second one time in every week. ‘Tiz [Therese Coffey, the deputy prime minister] wants me to battle on, but I don’t assume I will.’ She then defined two choices. The first was once to cause a four-week management contest.

The 2nd was once to stick on with a ‘unity cabinet’ for 6 months and ‘see where we’ve were given to’ in the summertime.

I knew neither choice would fulfill the markets.

‘Prime Minister,’ I advised her, ‘since the moment you asked me to do this job you have been incredibly brave and acted in the national interest.

‘You changed your Chancellor, reversed totemic policies and sat next to me in Parliament as I announced the changes.

‘Now, if you are going, it’s within the nationwide hobby that you simply do it temporarily, as a result of in a different way the markets will cave in. You wish to make certain your successor is in position inside of every week. Then your legacy will probably be that you simply acted for the most efficient for the rustic at a time of disaster.’

She nodded. We stood up. I gave her an ungainly hug. Whatever her errors, her resolution at that second was once gutsy.

I known as Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, which officially represents all Conservative MPs. I advised him the Prime Minister was once about to invite to peer him. I requested him to again me up through telling her it in point of fact did wish to be a snappy one-week procedure if we had been to steer clear of marketplace meltdown. He agreed.

I then known as in birthday party chairman Jake Berry for an emergency assembly. I requested two senior Treasury officers to give an explanation for to him the affect a chronic management marketing campaign would have at the markets. He was once, it’s truthful to mention, deeply suspicious. Part of him will have been questioning about my very own motives, so I reiterated that I’d no longer for my part put my hat into the hoop to be Prime Minister.

But he were given the purpose at the markets and agreed to make a couple of calls to get the birthday party board on facet. At 2.30pm, the Prime Minister introduced she was once resigning, together with her successor to be in position inside of every week.

By Friday lunch – in lower than every week – we had grew to become a £72billion deficit right into a £10billion surplus.

I had, by the way, rejected the theory of accelerating employers’ nationwide insurance coverage, despite the fact that it was once one of the crucial choices introduced to me – and more uncomplicated politically than the source of revenue tax threshold freezes I prolonged. More than the rest at that second, I wanted the economic system to develop and I knew that elevating nationwide insurance coverage would harm funding and activity introduction.

At that time, I had no concept if I’d nonetheless be Chancellor when the bundle of recent measures was once introduced. In the development, I stayed for just about two years beneath the brand new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. I didn’t know him neatly and he had no legal responsibility to stay me on however I had calmed the markets and he determined it was once no longer a time for additional adjustments.

They had been the 2 maximum exceptional years of my skilled existence. I didn’t get the entirety proper. To my sadness I left a lot unfinished industry, in particular on reforming welfare and bettering public sector productiveness and getting taxes down additional.

But at the sure facet of the ledger, the markets stabilised, inflation fell sharply, unemployment stayed low and we with ease headed off what the Bank of England predicted will be the longest recession in a century.

Nonetheless, the mini-Budget – and the cases wherein I had turn into Chancellor – weren’t our nation’s best hour, to mention the least. Nor has the web page been grew to become beneath my successor, Rachel Reeves, who has had her personal problems in terms of the boldness of the markets.

What makes issues worse is that our present financial travails have come after a chain of alternative destabilising occasions: a once-in-a-century pandemic, the Partygate scandal, an power disaster and hike in inflation, a messy Brexit procedure with a hung parliament, and austerity.

Some of the pressures were brought about through ‘black swan’ occasions like the worldwide monetary disaster, the pandemic or Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But others were self-inflicted, through events of each colors.

Whatever the rights or wrongs, my birthday party was once in fee right through a lot of them. In the 2024 common election, we paid the fee.

Adapted from Can We Be Great Again? through Jeremy Hunt (Swift Press, £20), to be revealed fifth June. © Jeremy Hunt 2025. To order a duplicate for £22.50 (be offering legitimate to 07/06/25; UK P&P unfastened on gives over £25) cross to mailshop.co.united kingdom/books or name 020 3176 2937.