A former Tory health secretary has suggested Rishi Sunak should be “ruthless” and consider sacking Jeremy Hunt as chancellor at the next reshuffle.
Lord Andrew Lansley, who was an MP from 1997 to 2015, suggested the prime minister remove Mr Hunt to “demonstrate change”.
Speaking to the Sky News Daily podcast, Lord Lansley said he and Mr Hunt had “always been good friends” but added: “It’s quite difficult to demonstrate change without change. Let’s just put it like that.”
Asked whether he would move Mr Hunt if he were in the prime minister’s shoes, Lord Lansley said: “That’s so unfair. Jeremy Hunt was my successor at health, and we’ve always been good friends.”
Sophy Ridge interjected: “It’s a brutal business politics though. Friendships don’t count for anything.”
Lord Lansley replied: “I know it is, and let me not be personal, but let’s just say from Rishi’s point of view, the more he demonstrates that he has reshaped the government in, as it were, his own image and what he thinks is necessary for the next parliament, the better it is.
“So if necessary, be ruthless, because what’s he got to lose now?”
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He added: “There’s always that opportunity to communicate about who you are, but also to demonstrate that you’re changing the Conservative Party. So it’s quite difficult to demonstrate change without change. So let’s just put it like that.”
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Mr Sunak, who marked his first anniversary as prime minister earlier this week, has been keen to impress upon the public that he is the change candidate, despite his party being in government for the past 13 years.
At his speech to Tory Party conference in Manchester earlier this month, Mr Sunak railed against “30 years of a political system which incentivises the easy decision, not the right one – 30 years of vested interests standing in the way of change”.
Mr Sunak is widely expected to carry out a reshuffle soon, and Mr Hunt’s name has emerged as a cabinet minister who could be moved.
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Mr Hunt was appointed chancellor in the wake of the fallout of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget, which sent the pound tumbling and spooked the markets.
Mr Hunt has been regarded as a steady pair of hands to calm nerves following the turmoil caused by Ms Truss’s premiership.
However, there have been reports that Mr Hunt could stand down at the next election, with senior Conservatives telling the Observer that the chancellor is aware he could suffer a “Michael Portillo” moment – a reference to the former senior Conservative who lost his safe seat in the 1997 general election.
