Jeremy Hunt

now we've met him i wouldn't buy the book yeah change my mind now

coming off the back of an interview about the budget with formula chancer jeremy hunt it was a real gear shift for viewers this week

it's The only way is up from that, right? If you as a comedian can't be more entertaining than Jeremy Hunt on the budget, then really you need to give up.

Yeah, what I liked as well is that Jeremy Hunt was just stood in the street in the rain, so I don't know if...

He'd opted not to come into the studio or a decision was made.

I like the thought that he was just outside and he'd failed security.

Our autumn interview specials continue, but just a quick recap on what you've missed.

So Jeremy Hunt, Longest Serving Health Secretary, Head of the MHRA, Lawrence Talon, Kim Ledbetter MP about life and death, Dr. Zan Van Tullican about the wellness industry in his new book, and last week, Professor Peter Fonagy talking about his independent review into ADHD, autism and mental health conditions, which...

I can tell you is already our fastest downloaded episode.

So there's a lot of interest in what Peter did.

So obviously, one of the three great shifts in the tenure plan is what I mentioned at the start is the analog to digital.

I completely understand that ambition.

You know, I've advocated for it myself, obviously, many, many times, as has every health secretary going back well before Jeremy Hunt, actually.

But surely that means transforming the NHS we've already got.

There are 2.6% cuts on protected departments.

Is that really plausible? Lots of previous chancellors, both Jeremy Hunt and Rachel Reeves, talked about doing that, pushing that back.

They just never seem to happen.

Are you really telling the country that those cuts are going to be made by the end of this parliament?

Hmm.

Yeah, Dan, we're just now past that magic 100 days into the 101st day, when obviously people do feel that they have kind of the optimum amount of power.

We spoke to Jeremy Hunt on this podcast last week, and his advice to John Healy was, these don't come around very often, and you have to use them.

Don't waste the opportunity.

And I'm sure there have been people spoofing Rachel Reeves, but maybe not Healy yet.

But Jeremy Hunt...

You know, who spoofed Jeremy Hunt? Who spoofed, you know, Kwezi Kwarteng wasn't there enough to be spoofed.

So something shifted in the public cultural understanding in relationship to politicians.

I think presumably, well, the simplest explanation is just that there's so much more media now.

It's certainly continued to rise since then but a lot of the amount that the government owes is still from all of the measures needed to both bail out the banks and keep the country buoyant back after 2008.

Before we view that as too radical, however, it's worth acknowledging that the bank surcharge used to be 8% before Jeremy Hunt dropped it down to 3% back in 2023, which wasn't that long ago.

And in actual fact, the trade unions had been urging the Chancellor of the Exchequer to raise it far, far higher than it currently is to 16%.

The rise of 3% is also only temporary.