Twenty years in the Commons, six in DCMS-Foreign-Health-leadership, then a decade away from the levers before returning as Chancellor for the last 21 months of Conservative government. The July 2024 result, an 891 majority over the Lib Dems in Godalming and Ash on a vote share that fell below 40%, was the closest call of his career.

Born 1966; PPE at Magdalen, first; founded Profile PR with Mike Elms in 1991 and Hotcourses in 1996; sold Hotcourses to IDP Education in January 2017 for a sum that brought him over £14m personally. Elected in 2005 for South West Surrey with a 5,711 majority. Knighted in Sunak''s resignation honours announced April 2025, citation "for political and public service".

Culture Secretary from May 2010 to September 2012. He took on the quasi judicial brief on the News Corp BSkyB bid in December 2010 after Vince Cable was caught calling for war. The Adam Smith resignation in April 2012, after emails between his special adviser and the Murdochs'' lobbyist Frédéric Michel were published at Leveson, was the closest he came to leaving the Cabinet; he told the inquiry he had considered resigning. Cameron refused to refer him to the independent adviser on the code, and Hunt survived. The bell PR stunt the day before the Olympics opening ceremony, when a souvenir bell flew off its handle into the crowd, was the kind of footnote that defined the era.

Health Secretary from September 2012 to July 2018, the longest tenure in NHS history. The Mid Staffordshire reckoning ran through it: he launched the Sign up to Safety campaign in June 2014 with the aim of halving avoidable harm and saving 6,000 lives. The seven day NHS pledge from the 2015 manifesto became the row of the parliament. The junior doctors dispute escalated through five strike days in 2016, the first such action since the 1970s; on 11 February 2016 he announced the new contract would be introduced regardless. The social care green paper was repeatedly delayed and left unfinished. He has since publicly admitted he "failed" on social care.

Foreign Secretary from July 2018 to July 2019, where in Beijing in July 2018 he introduced his Chinese wife to the Chinese foreign minister as Japanese. Came second to Boris Johnson in the 2019 leadership contest 92,153 to 46,656, having pitched himself as the no deal Brexit candidate prepared to tell small businesses going bust that the cost was "worth" paying. Returned as Chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee from January 2020 to October 2022, where his pandemic era hearings were rare moments of cross party scrutiny.

Chancellor from 14 October 2022 after Truss sacked Kwasi Kwarteng. On 17 October he reversed almost all of the mini budget. The November 2022 Autumn Statement set out £55bn of consolidation. Autumn 2023 and Spring 2024 budgets cut employee National Insurance from 12% to 8% in two stages, paid for in part by frozen thresholds that drew millions into higher rate tax. The 891 majority over Paul Follows on 4 July 2024 was the smallest a sitting Chancellor has held a seat by since the 1990s. Voted Aye on the Rwanda Bill at third reading. A career as conscientiously orthodox as the British centre right has fielded in twenty years, dotted with rows he survived rather than won.