Jeremy Hunt: the Japanese-speaking ‘survivor’ who is now UK’s new foreign minister
Jeremy Hunt, who had been the health secretary, is considered one of Theresa May’s most loyal ministers
Jeremy Hunt, who was named Britain’s new foreign minister on Monday, has earned a reputation as someone who is not afraid of a challenge after six years in charge of Britain’s notoriously unwieldy National Health Service.
The health secretary was called to Downing Street to be offered the job by PM Theresa May after predecessor Boris Johnson resigned in protest at the government’s plans for a close trading relationship with the European Union.
Hunt, 51, had served as health minister for more than 5-1/2 years, the longest term of any in the history of the state-funded National Health Service, weathering doctors’ strikes, public discontent with funding levels and other challenges.
He previously served as Culture Minister between 2010 and 2012 when he successfully fought off accusations of improper dealings with Rupert Murdoch’s media empire.
A Politico profile of him last year concluded that Hunt “ticks the box to get the politically dangerous jobs done”.
After he managed to secure extra funding for the NHS at a time of squeezed budgets, The Guardian earlier this year called him the “great survivor” and suggested that he may have prime ministerial ambitions of his own.
In Britain’s EU membership referendum in 2016, Hunt was a leading advocate for staying in the bloc – the position of then prime minister David Cameron’s government.