The City of London is a town of whispers, and right now it is humming with one big question. Who will replace Jeremy Hunt at Number 11? It is a question that would have seemed absurd six months ago. But the political weather has shifted. The economy stabilises. Growth ticks up. Inflation falls. And with a general election looming, the Tory party is starting to think about life after disaster.
Hunt is not out yet. Let me be clear. The Chancellor remains in post, and his allies insist he has the Prime Minister’s full confidence. But this is Westminster. Confidence is a commodity that devalues fast. The buzz in the Square Mile is not about whether Hunt will stay. It is about who will succeed him when he goes.
The usual suspects are circling. There is the safe pair of hands, the fiscal hawk who can soothe the bond markets. That would be someone like Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, who spent years chairing the Treasury Select Committee. He knows the numbers. He knows the lobby. He might even know how to smile.
Then there is the insurgent, the candidate who can rally the right. That is where Suella Braverman’s name keeps surfacing. She is not in the Treasury, but she is in the headlines. Her backers argue that only a true believer can win back the voters who flocked to Reform UK. But the City flinches at her name. Markets hate unpredictability. Braverman is anything but predictable.
Don’t rule out a dark horse. Kemi Badenoch is quietly making friends in the Treasury shadow. She has the Brexiteer credentials, the intellectual heft, and the ambition. If the party wants to turn the page on the Hunt era, she could be the one to write the new chapter.
And what about the Labour side? Yes, Rachel Reeves is the shadow chancellor. Yes, Labour is polling 20 points ahead. But in the City, nothing is taken for granted. There are whispers that Reeves has already held private dinners with bankers. That she is preparing a “fiscal responsibility” speech to match Hunt’s own. That she wants the markets to see her as the true heir to the Cameron-Osborne years.
The economy stabilises. That is good for the government. But it also creates a vacuum. A stable economy needs a stable chancellor. And the current chancellor is living on borrowed time. The question is not whether Hunt will be replaced. The question is when. And by whom.
The Lobby is watching. The desks in Canary Wharf are watching. And the man who will soon walk into Number 11 knows it. The game is on.
