In the first of a series of interviews - Theresa Villiers is next - Paul Goodman interviews the Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.
Jeremy Hunt waits patiently for me to extract myself from the end of the queue at the “Despatch Box” - the small cafe in Portcullis House at the Palace of Westminster. We dump ourselves down at a spare table a few yards away. Hunt's a regular Despatch Box meeting-holder.
So I've no Hunt office to scour for clues about his traits, quirks, interests. No photos, no mementoes. No staff to quiz. This unrevealing setting may appropriate for a politician who's “risen without trace” - as someone once said of David Frost. Hunt entered the Commons only in 2005, is already in the Shadow Cabinet and has, every now and again, been linked to the words “future Leader”.
And here he is. If MPs divide into spiky people and fluffy people, Hunt's one of the latter: neat suit, grey-and-white striped tie, charming but careful smile, big blue eyes.
He's extremely obliging. When I ask what's special about his wife, Lucia (they married last year; their first child is expected in June), his first response is: “One day I hope you'll meet my wife”. When I ask him about religion (he sometimes goes to Holy Communion in the Commons chapel immediately after Prime Minister's Questions: “a surreal experience”), he says “I know the subject's of interest to you”. “I think you may have written,” he says thoughtfully at one point, that it's no fun being an MP any more”.
But even in this fraught election year, I think that Hunt is having fun. It's interesting that when quizzed about his brief (“I mean, I'd never given a single speech on culture, media and sport before I did the brief, such is the ability of politics to offer surprises”), he comes quickly to presentation. “Part of my job is to convey the message about David Cameron's Conservative Party” - note the name-check - “to those particular sectors and to detoxify the Conservative brand in the way we've had to do in all sorts of other areas.”
Champions of BBC privatisation will be disappointed. “We are supporters of the BBC. We're not going to dismantle the BBC. That isn't where David Cameron's Conservatives are or where I myself am, and I think if we were to take that approach we'd be out of step with the vast body of British public opinion which trusts the BBC more than they trust the armed forces, more than they trust the NHS, more than they trust the Church of England if you look at the figures, and I think we've got to be very careful not to be out of step with public opinion.” Hunt clearly follows polling.
None the less, he argues that he's been tough with the BBC when necessary - and has certainly driven a series of announcements that won't have gone down well at Broadcasting House. “I said along with David Cameron that it's outrageous that the Director-General of the BBC is paid nearly a million pounds a year in basic salary.” He's been critical of “overpaid Executives” and the Corporation over the “Ross/Brand incident” (as it's presumably known in the trade). We now read that the BBC Trust is to be scrapped.
So the first glance impression of no big broadcasting change may well be misleading. Hunt has a strongly-held belief in new local television stations that's part of a wider vision. (He's a big localist: I remember seeing him clamber nimbly on to a chair to address a Direct Democracy fringe meeting at a Party Conference.) Does he watch much television? “I do make an effort to watch more now. One of the nice things about this brief is that it's opened my eyes to all sorts of things.” Then he's off talking intelligently and fluently about Howard Jacobson's presentation of part of a Channel 4 series on the Bible. Oh, and he can name the winner of the “X-Factor”. (In his job, you presumably have to.)
Providing “a proper sporting legacy” after the Olympic Games and “laying the foundations for an American-style philanthropic culture, not to replace state funding but to complement it” join more local TV in a trinity of top priorities for Hunt.
What drew him to politics? I point out that, like me, he was one of those “dire” student politicians. (My word, not his.) “Takes one to know one,” he shoots back. He's scarcely from a deprived background - he was Head Boy at Charterhouse; bagged a First at Magdalen, Oxford; was President of OUCA - and moves quickly to acknowledge that he had a supportive family, no financial worries, and a “pretty fortunate upbringing”.
“I always thought that at some stage of my life I'd want to go into public service in one way or another.” He delayed standing for Parliament not so much because he didn't feel ready - as has been written elsewhere - but because “it was more that I wanted to build up my business” (directory publishing with Mike Elms, a childhood friend, after working together in public relations.) Politics is “that dream, that virus…I can't remember who it was who said that most people go into politics from a combination of altruism and egotism. I think the thing to do is to make sure that the altruism remains on top.”
So far, so conventional: Oxford, business, Westminster. But before publishing and politics Hunt's path took a less predictable turn. He taught English in Japan - he's fluent on the receptiveness of Japanese culture, its openness to the outside world - and later founded a charity to help fund the education of AIDS orphans in Africa. (The 2005 intake seems to me to have done much more social action than their predecessors. The next intake looks to have done more still.)
“I married last year. China's another fascinating country. I think John Lennon said that the best way to make God laugh is to tell him your plans. Well, I think he's having a good old laugh because I went to Japan, I learnt Japanese, I immersed myself in the culture, I even write the language…and then I ended up marrying Lucia).”
Who are his friends? “I suppose the people I've got to know best are people like…Greg Clark…Nick Herbert. (Hunt and Clark have kept themselves even busier by writing together: co-authoring, for example, a pamphlet on Progressive Conservatism.) Anne Milton, who's one of my neighbours. Adam Afryie. Mark Field.” How often does he see them?
Hunt shrugs, and shakes his head slightly. “Diaries are packed out…I think it's important to bring back a bit of idealism into politics. At the moment the public tend to think that MPs are only it in for themselves, and they need to get a sense that MPs are in it because they want to do the right thing.”
What about that future leadership talk? “About me?” says Hunt, looking genuinely baffled. “Oh right, well, I take it with a massive pinch of salt.” David Cameron will be “a fantastic Prime Minister for many years…things change so quickly that it's ridiculous to think about what might happen in 10 years time”.
“If we win the next election we are going to have the opportunity to judge who might be a worthy successor to David Cameron one day, and it's by looking at people's performance…that has to be the critical test…and I think we have to be looking at whether people deliver real Conservative change in a very, very tough environment. It will be an enormous challenge to me as it will be to all my colleagues.”
