Monday 17 October 2022

News Corp's friend a step closer to premiership

 Commentators are falling over themselves to welcome a competent chancellor of the exchequer. Jeremy Hunt's appointment has certainly arrested the rise in the cost of government debt and the plunge in the value of the pound, though the latter has yet to rise to its value of $1.29 before the 2019 general election. Hunt clearly has the confidence of the majority of Conservative MPs as well as the commentariat. He is also doing the right thing in saving the detailed statement of his proposals for the House of Commons, though outlining them to the media this morning.

It should be remembered though that, until he strategically resigned from Boris Johnson's government, he has been part of a Tory administration which failed to counter Russian influencing of our politics, has run down the NHS, attacked benefits and abandoned our links to continental Europe. To be sure, he supported Remain at the time of the second referendum and (rightly) advocated remaining in the single market and customs union after it, but he publicly reversed his position the next year. He was an advocate of privatising the health service before the 2010 general election which brought his party back to power. As DCMS secretary, he pushed through the establishment of local TV stations, which have fallen far short of his vision, judging by the relic of Swansea Bay TV. As longest-serving Health minister he economised on PPE and ignored the recommendations of experts who foresaw the danger of pandemics.

Hunt has consistently shown his desire for the top job. This ambition was no doubt strengthened by his relationship with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (later News Corp UK) demonstrated by an apparent kid-glove treatment of the BSkyB takeover bid. [Source: Wikipedia]

Hunt will be an effective emergency dressing of the sore sapping UK strength, but what is needed is surgery in the form of a general election.


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