E31 – Ex-Chancellor Sir Jeremy Hunt MP – Uncovered

From there, he became the UK's longest serving health and Social Care Secretary, then Foreign Secretary, and ultimately Chancellor of the Exchequer. A journey that placed him at the centre of some of the toughest, most defining decisions of his generation. But titles only tell you the public story. Today, we're going beyond that, into the real journey. The resilience behind the offices, the failures before the success, the pressure, the identity, the criticism, and the cost of leadership at the highest level.

This is Sir Jeremy Hunt, not just as a political figure, but as a man navigating ambition, responsibility and the weight of public expectation.

Quick favour from me before we start. If you like the show, please subscribe and give us five stars. It all helps in bringing in the best guests. As well as the podcast, Monumental is a leadership network for men in their 40s, 50s and 60s. We meet online and in person. For more, please visit the website, monumental.global. This episode of the Monumental podcast is brought to you by Burgess Mee.

Jeremy, thank you for being on the Monumental podcast. Really appreciate your time. Well, and also braving the cold and being outside and sort of being happy to be here. Thank you. So my first question is, House or Oxford, which one shaped your leadership more?

Pleasure to be here, Pete.

I don't know about leadership.

They were both pretty important. Charterhouse probably was kind of quite seminal in terms of my confidence because I was useless at sport, unlike you. And then in fact, they have this running competition for the whole school every year called Pontifex, which you'll be aware of, which actually runs through here, the junior one. And because I'm a November birthday,

All my year were moved up to the senior school, but I wasn't and I won it. And this is literally the first and only sports prize I've ever won in my life. But it happened, you know, for completely fake reasons to give me a bit of a boost to my confidence. And I had two great friends here. So I think Charterhouse and then I I ended up. actually, I went I had a period when I was bullied in my second year and I was

pretty unhappy and I didn't tell my parents about it at all because I was very ashamed and I thought, they won't want to hear this because, you know, it's an expensive private school. And then I kind of pulled through that and became head of house and head of school and ended up very happily. I think going through that and coming out the other side definitely gave me confidence.

and resilience I guess on the back of that as well.

Yes, I think resilience is something which I always felt we should be better at teaching young people than we do because literally everyone has trauma in their life. Everyone goes through bereavement, everyone gets dumped by a girlfriend or a boyfriend at some stage in their life, everyone has professional disappointments, some people have marriage breakups and so on and

You know, and the sort of basic things which I've learned in adult life, which is basically the importance of having good friends and strong relationships in your life, is something that I'm surprised that we don't sort of teach more actively. Maybe it happens now, I don't know, but it certainly didn't happen when I was growing up.

Yeah, I'd like to think so. mean, effectively, that's what I was saying before we got to pick up the mics. You know, that's effectively what we do at Monumental now. Men coming into their 40s and 50s on the back of perhaps not thinking that that's important or even being aware that it's important to grow friendships, particularly through the late 20s and into your 30s when we can get really busy with work and get really busy with growing our careers and all the things that...

basically make us a little bit more isolated. So actually I was going to ask you later, but I will ask you this now. Who are your friends in politics?

Well, I think it's quite hard to develop real friends in politics. And, you know, I've got I've got one or two people that I get on particularly well with who are, you know, fellow MPs. But I think the issue in politics, people think it's because there's so much skullduggery and everyone stabbing each other in the back. And there is bit of that.

But it's not really the main problem. The main problem is everyone is so busy. in the olden days, most MPs represented safe seats. And the general election outcome was decided. Really, 100 or so marginal seats would swing from Conservative to Labour from election to election. That's not true anymore. There are really no safe seats now. And so...

MPs work very hard, they work very long hours and social media is very 24-7 and so as soon as you can get off after voting finishes, maybe the last vote's at, you know, seven or, you know, on Tuesday night it was eight o'clock because of the budget votes, people want to go home to their families and so you don't really socialise with your colleagues in the way that the MPs previously who would have slightly less pressure, constituency duties,

and much longer hours in the House of Commons. know, they would be up in the small hours drinking in the bars and that, as far as I can tell, certainly for me, is not the life at all.

So there's less, as a result, think there's less loyalty, less trust?

I people are very friendly to each other and politicians always know how to put on a friendly face because that's sort of part of the job. But I'm not sure they're very close to each other. And if I was going to say what sustained me during my time in politics, it's friends from outside politics.

And, you know, I've got two great male friends who I've been friends with, one of them for 40 years and one of them for 30 years. So both of them long before I went into politics. And of course, I'm very lucky with my wife and my family. Although you're never really as good a husband or a dad as you could be if you're in politics. I think one of the things about politics is because

Lots of people are nice to you because of your position. I mean, like if you're Chancellor of the Exchequer, literally everyone has got something they want from you because everything boils down to money in life. And it's always going through your mind, you know, would this person still be friendly with me if I wasn't Chancellor? So what you end up thinking is actually the people I really care about are the ones that I absolutely know.

be friends even if I had to leave politics in disgrace because something went wrong. so I'm lucky to have any. Well, no disgraces on the horizon yet. But you never know in politics things change very well. think being Chancellor was the biggest surprise of my political career. But so the unexpected things do happen.

plans.

I mean it can happen.

as I read in your book, as I read in your book. And interestingly, I had this vision or thought before I read your book that you had been a business or been a very successful businessman, which you kind of had been, but also you mentioned that you had three startups that failed. I'm just wondering again, what that taught you. Sorry to, sorry to.

No, These are great questions. Well, first of all, I set up my business in my 20s and I set it up with my best friend. Everyone says don't set up a business with a friend, you know, but actually he's one of those two friends who's still one of my very closest friends. And the thing about setting up a business in your 20s, if you're going to set up a business, I really recommend doing it early because, you know, we didn't have we didn't own our own houses.

We didn't have families and it just didn't matter when the businesses fell, folded, they folded. We didn't go bankrupt or anything like that. We just closed down ventures that weren't working out. And you just pack it up and start and move on to the next thing. And it's much harder to do that when you've got a mortgage and maybe school fees and all those other things at stake. actually...

Running that business, which I did for 14 years before I went into politics, is one of the most fun periods of my life. we had great fun as well. But I guess you do learn. What was that great saying by Churchill? He said, success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. And I think that's a good motto.

Just a quick interruption here, if you can give me 20 seconds to highlight the supporter of this episode, I'd be really grateful. Today's podcast with Sir Jeremy Hunt is sponsored by Burgess Mee, the family law firm supporting men and women through the emotional and legal complexities of relationship breakdown. When your world feels like it's falling apart, Burgess Mee offers calm, expert guidance, helping you move forward with clarity and dignity. Learn more at BurgessMee.com.

Now back to the conversation. Talking of success, obviously you became one of the most, what I could say, powerful men in the country, if not the second most powerful man in the country. To go from that to, whilst not belittling it, to being a backbencher, how does that feel for you?

It feels great because I knew when I was chancellor that it wasn't going to be forever. And I was very thrilled and honored to have the privilege of doing it for the time that I did. But I knew that time would come to an end. And so in my own mind, had, you know, I think I'd framed it enough in a very realistic way.

And in the end, wasn't about me. It was about the position and about doing what I could. But I think, you know, when you do those kind of very big roles, you do need to keep perspective. And my own personal way of keeping perspective is that I go on a run most mornings and I don't listen to music or podcasts.

Pete Hunt (11.48)

Apart from from this one.

course, of course. Well, now I'm gonna be a gold subscriber or whatever it is you do. But I, but I think you just do need to keep a little bit of perspective in life. Otherwise. Otherwise, you can get a little bit carried away.

I'll make that help for you.

How do you keep perspective walking out of 11 Downing Street in the morning?

The only criticism I really care about is the criticism that comes from someone who knows me. Otherwise, they're really criticizing my party, Rosette, and it's the conservative party they don't like. It's not me. That's how I think about it in my own mind. So the criticism doesn't really bother me too much. When I was in that job as chancellor, I set myself some very realistic goals.

you know, stretching goals. But they weren't, I didn't say that this will only be a success if we win the next election. Or this will only be a success if the British economy is more successful than Silicon Valley. By the time I stopped being Chancellor, they were much more tangible goals. And I, I said to myself, I want to

build a list in my mind of things that I do that I'm proud of that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been doing this job. I got that list up to about 14 things by the time I stopped being Chancellor and my staff around me, the civil servants around me, they knew the list. There was no secret about it. And I said, look, we're trying to do big things. So one of them, for example, was a big new IT system for the NHS because I'd been Health Secretary. I thought the IT was rubbish in the NHS.

And so I did a deal with the head of the NHS and she asked for a 3.4 billion quid. But that was one of my 14. I thought that I did that because I was health secretary when I became chancellor and I sort of ticking off those things. So when things were bad and I was getting a lot of I was under fire, I would say, look, I've done six, six things and there's a seventh one which I'm going for next week. And I would just keep ticking them off. interesting. I wanted them to be.

about halfway through I thought I think I can get this up to 11 things and I call them my Ocean’s 11 so it's a bit corny but that's what I call them in my mind and then and actually it got up to 14 in the end so when I finally finished I was proud I thought I've done 14 things I'm proud of

Amazing. So longest standing health secretary, health and social care secretary in the UK has ever had, is that right? I mean, that must have come with its ups and downs. And I use this word in a way that has, I guess, been described of many health secretaries. But there's quite a lot of hate there, isn't there? You talked about earlier about it being a political or a

a case for political parties. At times did that feel personal?

yeah. I mean, that was the most difficult, challenging job I've ever done in my life. And I did it for nearly six years. And the people that you're talking to on every issue, it is a matter of life or death. I mean, you're talking to people who saying, why won't the NHS pay for the cancer drugs that could save my wife's life? Or, you know, why didn't you supervise a hospital better so that this

Is it you find it lonely in there?

in their history. And so it was quite tough. But I kept going because I had this mission, which was that I was really shocked about the amount of avoidable harm and death in the NHS, and in fact, in health systems all over the world. And the way that medical error and people dying because of mistakes has become very normalized in health systems.

in a way that would be utterly unacceptable in any other industry. So I was trying to campaign on what's called patient safety. And I just kept going and I thought this is thing that I care about. It's not about me. It's about this mission. And I think it was because I felt about it that way that I was able to kind of keep pressing on.

Yeah, I can hear my friends laughing at me at the moment, but in terms of what my role has been over the last 10 years, talking about men's sort of mental and emotional wellbeing in the last 10 years, I've also felt completely on my own. So I can resonate with the sort of the feelings of feeling, you know, as though you're...

sort of having the finger pointed at you, but I can imagine on a national scale with, and I've had pretty nasty stuff said about me online, but on a national scale, when, you know, having the newspapers point at you and you must have a very strong family unit. And what is, mean, what is the key to that in politics actually in your marriage and having been through like a lot in the last 15 years?

You have to be honest that if you're in politics, it's a bit like having a third person in the marriage. It's a big distraction to the most important thing in any marriage, which is developing a close friendship with your other half. Because what happens is you're doing a job like your health secretary. And first of all, it's utterly absorbing because there's so much going on. Like, you know, I never

took work home on Sundays. I always thought that's going to be a family day. But of course, Sunday is a big media day and there's always going to be a health story. So you'd spend an hour and a half in the mornings ploughing through the papers, maybe watching the Andrew Marr or the Laura Kuenssberg show or something like that. And then even if you're at home and even if you're not working and you're with the kids, your mind is ticking over and you're thinking about

this or that that's going on and this or that that's coming up in the following week. So you're there, but you're not really present. You know, if you're honest, it's very tough on your family because you're thinking, I have no job security. know, the prime minister can reshuffle me at any moment. There could be some scandal that happened completely out of the blue. And

This is the most important job I will ever do in my life. So I'm really going to give it my all. And I love you dearly wife and I love you dearly kids, but just bear with me for this period. Because this is like a very special period I've got to focus on the job. But I was actually in the cabinet for 11 out of 14 years that conservatives are in power. You know, I entered the cabinet less than a year after I got married. All my kids were born.

after I became an MP, they've never known anything else. And so it's very, tough. Yeah, it's extended. I always thought this isn't going to last for long. And then it did. And so that's, that's why, you know, marriages don't last very long in politics often, sadly.

Periods extended,

And talking, mean, talking about your wife then, talking about your kids, something which is really important to me at the moment is the mental health of children because we see now seeing what the last 15 years of, if you like, social media, smartphones has effectively done. No one's sort of really putting the finger on it or the research hasn't exactly been perfect, but everyone can see that there is clearly an issue within

eating disorders, whether it's anxiety, depression, and even going through to suicide. The numbers are through the roof. It's clearly, to me, linked to the amount of digital use there is. It's clearly linked. You we grew up, you ran, I hit a cricket ball about. There was a lot of time where we were spending time in nature, which is why I like to do the podcast out in nature. I feel that, if I may, politicians and the

influence that is going into politics is so strong within the tech companies that we've really forgotten about our children and what on the 10th of December what Australia are doing in banning their social media I think is absolutely incredible and amazing. What are the political reasons, I may have just outlined a few, but what are the political reasons you see us not doing that when it's so obvious?

under pressure they have. We were very worried about porn and now the law's been changed with age verification and I think we've got to do the same on social media because doom scrolling is a terrible thing for kids and you know the truth is all parents give their kids screens and it's a form of child care and and kids sort of zone out for three hours.

time and it's terrible and I worry about their attention spans and their ability to form good strong relationships and best friends because they're getting addicted to screens. So I think Australia's led the way. I really admire them for doing that but I think you know if you want to be cynical about it I think politicians will do it because there are lots of votes in it. You and I not the only parents who think that way but I think it is really important for young people's mental health that we

we think about these things.

Yeah. And how do you manage it at home?

Well, the problem is that, course, kids, you know, everyone says the most effective way of bringing your kids up well is to set a good example yourself. But, you know, I'm I'm guilty of looking at my screen, you know, frequently over the weekends. And, you know, I want to catch up with the news on my phone the whole time. So that that is a problem. And then, of course, the other thing that every parent of teenage kids has to face is the fact that even though they're

burning with all the lessons about life and how to protect your mental health that you think you've learned over the years, your kids are not really interested in hearing it from you. They'd rather you just shut up and let them get on with their lives. So sometimes it's a bit difficult.

Yeah, it's the challenge, isn't it? When people say, it's back to the parents. Well, OK, but we're up against trillion dollar addictive companies, know, people who've made trillions of dollars and people have made so much money out of it. It's very difficult to see how they're the ones who are going to be the ones to sort of close it down. I mean, we...

We are going to sort this out. think I do have optimism. When I was growing up, everyone was really worried that kids were spending too long glued to TV screens. And in the end, as human beings, we will work out a way to be masters of our own destiny. But the challenge is that we're going through a transition at the moment. And in

periods of great technological transition, such as when we used to send children up to chimneys or make people work horrible hours in factories in terrible conditions. There's a transition period which can be very tough. So we won't get everything right, I'm sure, over the next few years. But I think in the end, we will work out how to get the balance right.

So talking of transitions, we talked about earlier, we talked about your transition from being Chancellor to backbencher. Do you still have, I think I put it in my notes somewhere along the lines of, do you have ambitions to be a leader again in the Conservative Party, Prime Ministerial ambitions, or, and I'll give the second part of the question here, and I've got it in my notes as a Cleggie, doing it, you know, what stops you from doing a Nick Clegg and going to Silicon Valley where I...

sure you could make a second huge fortune. What stops you from doing that and being here and being in service?

I definitely want to stay in what I would loosely call public service. And I think it's very unlikely that I will ever go back into being a leader of my party or prime minister or anything like that. I think it's very unlikely. Of course, nothing is ever a totally impossible in politics, but I do feel that...

It's very unlikely.

It's time for a different period in my life and I particularly want to be around more for my family than I was able to be in previous years. In writing these books that I've been writing, I hope to be able to make a contribution to ideas in public life. I one thing that I've learnt about leadership is that you tend to do a job in the cabinet and think...

The definition of success is things I've changed. But actually the only lasting change is when you change the way people think. That's the most important change of all. And if you think about the great leaders that we've had, the great prime ministers, they've been people who actually changed the way we think about things. Winston Churchill gave us confidence. Margaret Thatcher changed the way we think about enterprise.

Tony Blair made us a more relaxed and socially liberal society than we were. they all of them, actually their biggest contribution has been changing the way we think rather than the actual tangible things that people sometimes talk about. And I think you can do that through books and writing and ideas. So that's where I'm headed at the moment.

them and so give us a final question. What would be the one, you've written a book called Can We Make Britain Great Again? What would be the one thing that would make Britain Great Again? If you could put your finger on one of them what would it be?

think we've got to get our confidence back. We've been through a rotten patch. We've had lots of global shocks that have affected us and knocked our confidence. But I read one statistic that a third of young people would like to move abroad. Then if you ask young people around the world, UK is actually the third most admired country, the second most trusted.

you

and the top country when it comes to being a force for good in the world. so other countries have a whole lot better opinion of us than we have of ourselves. I think, you know, when the world is so dangerous, you know, this is not a time to retreat back into our shells. We should roll our sleeves up and say, what can we do to make the world a safer, better place? And I think that we haven't got everything right as a country, of course.

But at our best, have been a really positive influence in the world. And I think we should recognise that this is one of those moments where there's so much at stake that we should be willing to get back out there.

Brilliant. I love that optimistic and positive way to end. Thank you so much for being here. Pleasure. Thank you, Jeremy. So thank you for listening to the Monumental podcast. For more on our podcast and network, please go to monumental.global.

Pete, thank you very much.