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.
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