World

Newly appointed UK finance minister Jeremy Hunt is a mild-mannered political survivor who will require all of his considerable experience to calm an economy and government beset by chaos.

Hunt, 55, was health minister under David Cameron, and foreign minister under Theresa May, but found himself on the sidelines after Boris Johnson defeated him to become party leader in 2019.

After another failed leadership attempt this year following Johnson’s demise, Hunt suddenly finds himself thrust into the heart of the economic and political storm.

Under-pressure Prime Minister Liz Truss called him “one of the most experienced and widely respected government ministers and parliamentarians”.

“He will drive our mission to go for growth, including taking forward the supply-side reforms that our country needs,” she said on Friday.

Hunt hails from the centre of the Conservative Party, and his appointment indicates Truss wants to appease those MPs already plotting to remove her after her tax-cutting budget sparked market chaos.

He saw unbroken cabinet service from the Tory election victory in 2010 to his leadership defeat in 2019.

In government, he oversaw the London 2012 Olympics, was Britain’s longest-serving health secretary and proved a steady pair of hands as the UK’s top diplomat.

A supporter of remaining in the EU, Hunt was relegated to the backbenches when pro-Brexit Johnson took charge, although he was chair of the influential Health and Social Care Select Committee, which sought to hold the government to account during the pandemic.

However, he was also criticised for his pandemic planning while health chief.

As the culture, media and sport minister, he was under intense pressure to resign in 2012 over his contacts with Rupert Murdoch during a phone-hacking scandal involving the mogul’s media empire.

However, Hunt toughed it out and the judge-led inquiry into press ethics exonerated him of bias towards Murdoch’s News Corporation in its bid to take over broadcaster BSkyB.

– Surrey, Oxford and Japan –

Hunt was promoted to health secretary, one of the hardest jobs in cabinet at the time, as the government implemented long-lasting austerity measures in the wake of the 2008 economic crisis.

Hundreds of thousands of National Health Service workers went on strike in 2014 for the first time in 32 years following Hunt’s rejection of an across-the-board pay rise.

But he remained in the role as May took charge following the 2016 vote to leave the EU, only leaving when Johnson quit the Foreign Office in July 2018 over May’s Brexit policy.

As foreign secretary, Hunt set up the Yemen peace talks.

Born on November 1, 1966, Hunt is the eldest son of Admiral Nicholas Hunt, who was the fleet commander-in-chief from 1985 to 1987, one of the highest positions in the Royal Navy.

Hunt grew up in Godalming, southwest of London, and now represents the local South West Surrey constituency in parliament.

He was educated at Charterhouse, a prestigious private school.

Hunt went on to Oxford University, where he first became politically active as president of the Conservative Association, and was a contemporary of Johnson and Cameron.

He graduated with a first in philosophy, politics and economics.

– Big Rice –

After university, Hunt worked as a management consultant and later an English language teacher in Japan. He now speaks fluent Japanese.

Hunt had a successful career as an entrepreneur.

He set up Hotcourses, which puts prospective students in touch with universities and colleges.

Selling his stake made him a sterling multi-millionaire. He was elected to parliament in 2005.

He served as the Conservatives’ culture, media and sport spokesman in opposition then took over the brief as secretary of state when his party took office in 2010.

He is married to Lucia, who is from China. They have a son and two daughters.

They first met via Hotcourses as she was a Warwick University student recruiter. They married within a year in 2009.

She told The Mail on Sunday newspaper that he calls her “Precious” and she calls him “Big Rice” — based on her grandmother’s mispronunciation of Jeremy.

“He is kind, he is always generous, he cares about his family and he is very strong,” she said.

Shortly after being made foreign secretary, Hunt made perhaps his biggest blunder when he accidentally called his wife Japanese, on a visit to China.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijan on Friday slammed “unacceptable” comments from French leader Emmanuel Macron’s on the decades-long conflict between arch foes Baku and Yerevan.

The Caucasus neighbours have fought two wars — in 2020 and in the 1990s — over Azerbaijan’s Armenian populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Deadly clashes in September along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border have raised the fears of a fresh all-out conflict.

In comments to French television Wednesday, Macron accused Russia of “destabilising” and “seeking to create disorder” in the Caucasus.

The French leader’s remarks “show a lack of understanding of the course of the conflict,” Putin said during a meeting of leaders of Commonwealth of Independent States members in Kazakhstan. 

He added that Macron’s accusations “sounded incorrect” and were “unacceptable”.

“There will be an opportunity” to “discuss” this with Macron, Putin said as he also invited the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to Russia for talks “at any time, in any place”.

“Russia has always sincerely sought to resolve any conflicts, including issues related to Karabakh,” he said. 

Macron also accused Azerbaijan of launching “a terrible war, with many deaths, atrocious scenes”.

More recently, “Azerbaijan has launched several offensives along the border (with Armenia). We have condemned them. We will not abandon Armenians,” he said.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev reacted angrily Friday, saying Macron “came up with insulting, unacceptable, false and provocative statements”.

“We do not see any further possibility for France to play any role in the process of normalisation of Azerbaijani-Armenian relations,” he said.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who was also present at the meeting in Astana, said Baku was preparing “to annex more Armenian lands”.

– Future peace treaty –

On Friday Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijan’s Jeyhun Bayramov met for talks in the Kazakh capital Astana.

Russian, Armenian, and Azerbaijani foreign ministries said the trio discussed joint efforts on normalising Azerbaijani-Armenian relations.

The meeting was held amid the growing Western engagement in the volatile Caucasus region, where Russia — distracted by its war in Ukraine — is visibly losing influence after decades of domination.

On Wednesday, Kremlin foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov criticised the “attempts of non-regional players — the EU and US — to wedge themselves in our work” on the region.

With Moscow increasingly isolated on the world stage following its February invasion of Ukraine, the US and the EU have taken a leading role in mediating the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks.

Last week, the European Union announced a “civilian EU mission” to Armenia to help delineate the borders with Azerbaijan.

Following a slew of diplomatic efforts from Brussels and Washington, Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers met on October 3 in Geneva to begin drafting the text of a future peace treaty.

In September, more than 285 people were killed in border clashes at the Caucasus neighbours’ border, before a US-brokered truce ended the worst fighting since their 2020 war. 

That six-week war in autumn 2020 claimed the lives of more than 6,500 troops from both sides and ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire.

Under the deal, Armenia ceded swathes of territory it had controlled for decades, and Moscow deployed about 2,000 Russian peacekeepers to oversee the fragile truce.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan. The ensuing conflict claimed around 30,000 lives.

It may seem a drop in the ocean, but the $13 million Denmark has earmarked as aid for climate change-related “loss and damages” set an important precedent.

It might just end up helping open a fresh flow of aid to the world’s most vulnerable countries.

Danish Development Cooperation Minister Flemming Moller told the UN General Assembly last month the money was for “climate adaptation and concrete activities to avert, minimise and address climate-induced loss and damage”.

It would mainly help island states and countries in the Sahel region of North Africa, he added.

Denmark’s gesture, however modest, represents an important contribution to the debate over the still-contentious notion of “loss and damages”.

“In some ways, Denmark is a pioneer,” said Lily Salloum Lindegaard, who specialises in the politics of climate change at the Danish Institute for International Studies.

Only Scotland and Belgium’s Walloon government have made such commitments previously, she added — and on a modest scale.

“But Denmark’s commitment provides further progress if we are to address the extensive losses and damages already experienced due to climate change,” Lindegaard told AFP.

“In comparison to the needs on the ground, the Danish commitment is quite small” given the scale of the problem.

But, she added: “The Danish commitment is more significant in political terms, as developed countries have long shied away from finance to losses and damages.”

– Pushback –

As the consequences of global warming — measured in lives lost and economic damages — have piled up, calls for loss and damage as a separate category have mounted.

Developing nations see this kind of funding as compensation — a form of reparations — above and beyond “adaptation” support to build resilience against future impacts.

Rich nations, while acknowledging the need that developing nations have for aid, remain wary of setting a legal precedent that might suggest liability for any and all future damages.

“Climate finance to date has basically only gone to preventing climate change impacts and related losses and damages through mitigation and adaptation efforts,” said Lindegaard.

And not every country is willing to go further, she added.

“There has already been some pushback from the US,” said Lindegaard.

“However, the science of loss and damage is already quite clear and continues to develop quickly, which makes it increasingly difficult for countries to sidestep the issue.”

– ‘We are committed’ –

As climate change amplifies the devastation of extreme weather events, pressure is mounting on developed nations to do more to help.

The world’s most vulnerable countries in the Global South are least responsible for causing the problem — the G20 group of major economies account for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions today, and even more historically. 

Pakistan — a nation of 220 million that has seen record monsoon rains this year linked to climate chang — emits less than one percent.

Denmark’s announcement at the UN Assembly General sent a clear message, Danish Development Minister Flemming Moller Mortensen told AFP.

“We are committed to helping the people and communities that are suffering from the consequences of climate change. 

“These are the people that are losing their houses to floods, the farmers that are losing their harvest because of drought”.

– Start of a dialogue –

At last year’s COP26, developing countries did not get the commitments they were looking for on targeted financial commitments.

Rich countries agreed only to begin a two-year dialogue on the issue running through 2024.

Denmark spends some $2.9 billion annually on development aid according to the OECD, equivalent to about 0.7 percent of gross national income.

It has set a target of spending at least 60 percent of its aid on climate adaptation, and is the first country to specifically allocate funds to redress its impacts.

But even Denmark’s commitment is short on details.

Its funds will be distributed between NGOs and a strategic initiative with details forthcoming, said the foreign ministry.

Their announcement was nevertheless widely seen as setting an important precedent.

It remains to be seen whether other countries will follow suit.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss on Friday dismissed her finance minister, forcing Kwasi Kwarteng to carry the can for turmoil sparked by her right-wing economic platform as restive Conservatives plotted her own demise.

The chancellor of the exchequer was dismissed in person by Truss after he rushed back early from international meetings in Washington, and she was due to hold her first Downing Street news conference at 2:30 pm (1330 GMT).

There was no immediate announcement of his successor, who will become Britain’s fourth finance minister this year, and the pound slumped anew on currency markets.

“You have asked me to stand aside as your chancellor. I have accepted,” Kwarteng wrote in a letter to Truss, who only succeeded Boris Johnson on September 6.

But he insisted that their economic programme was needed because “the status quo was simply not an option”.

In reply, Truss wrote that Kwarteng had “put the national interest first”.

“I know that you will continue to support the mission that we share to deliver a low-tax, high-wage, high-growth economy that can transform the prosperity of our country for generations to come,” she said.

Financial upheaval sparked by the new government’s September 23 plan to slash taxes — financed via billions in more borrowing — has subsided somewhat since the Bank of England intervened in bond markets.

But the central bank was adamant it would end its bond-buying spree on Friday, and market analysts said only a bigger climbdown by Truss following Kwarteng’s disastrous budget announcement last month would avert fresh panic.

Tony Travers, from the London School of Economics, told AFP Kwarteng had been made “the fall guy for the government’s mistakes” — but that the sacking had not taken the pressure off Truss or calmed the Tories.

“It’s very hard to see them coming back from this” by the next election, he added. 

– ‘Not going anywhere’ –

Kwarteng was due to have stayed in Washington this weekend to conclude annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, after earned a rebuke from IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva on the need for “coherent and consistent” policies.

Speaking in Washington on Thursday, Kwarteng had insisted that his job was safe. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

But UK broadcasters showed live footage of Kwarteng’s British Airways plane landing at Heathrow airport a day early, after Truss held hurried meetings with her own financial advisors on Thursday in his absence.

Speculation was rife that Truss would row back on planned changes to corporation tax, having already changed her mind about cutting income tax for the highest earners.

The promised tax cuts were the centrepiece of Truss’s successful pitch to Tory party members that she,, rather than rival Rishi Sunak, was the best candidate to replace Johnson. 

That programme now lies in tatters, and Truss’s judgement is in question more than ever, after Sunak’s warnings were entirely vindicated: higher borrowing to pay for tax cuts served only to terrify the markets and drive up borrowing costs for millions of Britons.

A new YouGov poll for The Times newspaper said 43 percent of Conservative voters want a new prime minister in Downing Street.

Other polls show a mammoth lead up opening up for the main opposition Labour party, threatening electoral meltdown for the Tories. 

– ‘Romcom-worthy dash’ –

Junior minister Greg Hands said “I don’t recognise” multiple reports that senior Tory MPs were plotting to unseat Truss by installing a new leadership team under Sunak and Penny Mordaunt, who also ran to succeed Johnson.

Pressed on whether Truss will still be in 10 Downing Street in a week, Hands told ITV: “Oh definitely.”

The chancellor’s September 23 budget sparked market chaos because of fears it would drive up state debt. 

The pound tumbled to a record dollar low near parity with the greenback and bond yields surged, before stabilising thanks to interventions by the Bank of England (BoE). 

But with that costly BoE crutch ending on Friday, markets had already priced in a fresh about-turn by the government, leaving Downing Street with no room for manoeuvre.

Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said before Kwarteng’s sacking that his “romcom-worthy dash through the airport” showed the government waking up to financial reality.

But for many pundits, the self-inflicted damage risks proving terminal for Truss and her hard-right platform.

Another new poll by Ipsos showed Truss’s net satisfaction score at minus 51, lower than any of her predecessors this century, while Kwarteng left office with historically low ratings for a chancellor.