A message from an unrecognised number jumped out at me from my phone: ‘Liz Truss here. Please can you give me a call.’ Was the Prime Minister really trying to contact me? Surely not. It was mid-October 2022 and she had been in Downing Street for a little over a month.

Having tried and failed to become Conservative leader for the third time that summer, soundly beaten in the first round of voting, I was coming to terms with life on the back benches and was in a comfortable Brussels hotel on a promotion tour for a book I had just written on the NHS.

After nearly a decade in the Cabinet – as Foreign Secretary, Health Secretary and Culture Secretary – I was also trying to be a better dad.

My first reaction to the message was disbelief. I shouted out to my wife, Lucia: ‘Someone just tried to message me pretending to be Liz Truss. I can’t believe how naive people think I am. It’s probably a radio show host trying a hoax call.’

I ignored the message and we went downstairs for breakfast. I had French toast.

Then we went back to our room to get ready for some sightseeing. But on my phone were two more messages. One was from a friend asking if I knew that No 10 was trying to get in touch. Another text from another unrecognised number asked me to call ‘No 10 switch’.

I was still too suspicious to call back on the number given but managed to find a different one in my contacts and rang on that. Gingerly, I told the operator that it was probably a hoax, but I had received a message asking me to speak to the Prime Minister.

‘No, it’s not a hoax, she does want to speak to you,’ the operator replied. ‘But I’m afraid she’s on the other line. Can we call you back?’

Liz Truss and I had never been close politically. She had not supported any of my attempts to become leader, nor had I backed her in that summer’s bitter leadership contest against Rishi Sunak, writes Hunt

Within seconds the Prime Minister magically became available. I was put through.

Liz Truss and I had never been close politically. She had not supported any of my attempts to become leader, nor had I backed her in that summer’s bitter leadership contest against Rishi Sunak.

But, on a personal level, relations had always been cordial. I respected her ballsiness and she was always fun company. When she became Foreign Secretary under Boris Johnson, she invited me in to pick my brains, a courtesy not always observed by others. But this was a different and rather shorter conversation.

Her prime ministership was in trouble after a controversial tax-cutting ‘mini-Budget’ that had gone down badly with the financial institutions. The pound was in freefall. She started by saying things were not sustainable.

I cut to the chase: ‘So how do you want me to help?’ She replied with one word: ‘Chancellor.’ Suddenly, the phone in my hand felt so hot I wanted to drop it. Blimey, I thought, this was not what I was expecting. Unbelievable.

She was at pains to say that I was her first choice to replace Kwasi Kwarteng. She may have wondered if I had read Press speculation that she would offer the job to Sajid Javid. I didn’t care in the slightest. I thanked her and asked for half an hour to think about it. Then I put the phone down and leapt in the air. ‘She’s offered me Chancellor,’ I said to Lucia.

We thought about it in a bit of a daze. The Chancellor has the second most powerful job in government and lives in Downing Street. Being offered the post is an enormous honour. But, after the disastrous ‘mini-Budget’, if ever there was a poisoned chalice it was this. I didn’t have much confidence that Liz Truss would last. I could be the shortest-serving Chancellor in history.

On the other hand, prime ministers in difficulty can survive a long time, as I had learnt from Theresa May. Maybe, even in a short time, I could push through some good things.

It would be an adventure for my kids, aged eight, ten and 12, to live in Downing Street – one of the most famous addresses in the country – even briefly

For the previous two years I had been chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, and had been campaigning to increase the number of doctors and nurses we train as part of a new long-term workforce plan for the NHS. The Treasury had blocked it. If nothing else, perhaps, I could push that through?

Then there was the family. It would be an adventure for my kids, aged eight, ten and 12, to live in Downing Street – one of the most famous addresses in the country – even briefly. But, since the rather traumatising junior doctors strike several years earlier, I had been promising Lucia that I would quit frontline politics.

Despite that, I had agreed to be Foreign Secretary, and she had dropped everything (including her job) to support me. I even ran against Boris Johnson to be leader of the party and Prime Minister, again with her unstinting support. I felt like the political embodiment of St Augustine’s prayer: ‘Lord make me chaste – but not yet.’

So I wondered how Lucia would feel about an even bigger challenge, not least one involving the upheaval of moving. I needn’t have worried. As always, when faced with my biggest challenges, she was all in.

So, after just 20 minutes, I called Liz Truss back and accepted. I had embarked on the biggest challenge of my life – brought in to confront chaos and dysfunction at the heart of the British state.

I had plenty of experience in government but none of my roles had been in an economics or business portfolio. As someone who likes to plan meticulously for all possibilities, I was in a no-man’s land. I had no idea how it would turn out.

On the train on our way back to London, I was called by an official from the Cabinet Office for the standard pre-appointment checks. I had to move to the noisy corridor between carriages so as not to be overheard. As we went through the Channel Tunnel, the line cut out, making the hurried process even more farcical.

An hour after arriving at our home in Pimlico, I had changed into a suit and was on my way to Downing Street. After meeting the Prime Minister in the Cabinet Room, I walked out of No 10 and was told to head through the arch towards the Foreign Office to give the Press photographers the opportunity for pictures.

Our first challenge was a black hole. A real black hole, not one fabricated to create a political narrative (Rachel Reeves, please note). And it was £72billion

Then I climbed into a car to travel the princely distance of 200 yards to my new office in His Majesty’s Treasury.

Treasury officials are the most feared in Whitehall. Fearsomely tough negotiators, they are the part of government whose job is to say no. But, face to face, I found them quite different. They were clever, decent, eager to help and loved a good debate. They demonstrated an abundance of the most important quality needed in any civil servant: telling you exactly what they really think. As I sat round the large meeting room table in the Chancellor’s office, I found they were surprisingly open to new ideas.

It did not feel like a cult adhering to ‘Treasury orthodoxy’.

But I also sensed fear. Kwasi, the previous Chancellor, had taken the rap for a Budget that had gone wrong. The Treasury was in the spotlight as an institution. The economy, for which it was responsible, was teetering on the brink. And their new boss – me –was a complete novice.

I decided to put them at their ease. ‘Let me start by saying this,’ I said. ‘We are going to do whatever is right for the country. Even if it means I am a Ken Clarke Chancellor who makes the right decisions but ends up leaving a strong economy for his opponents to inherit.’ Little did I know how painfully close to the truth my words would end up.

Our first challenge was a black hole. A real black hole, not one fabricated to create a political narrative (Rachel Reeves, please note). And it was £72billion. That equated to more than 2 per cent of GDP, or 15p on income tax. Sorting it would require ‘consolidation’ – an economist’s euphemism for tax rises and spending cuts. I would end up implementing one of the biggest public finance ‘consolidations’ ever.

Officials introduced me to what they called a ‘scorecard’. It was a double-sided piece of A3 paper with a table on one side detailing about £1trillion of government spending and another table on the other side laying out the equivalent £1trillion in tax receipts. Or actually less, which was why we had a black hole. Every number on the table was a billion. If it said ‘13,502’ that was £13.502billion. Tucked away at the bottom of the back page was the number that really mattered – the gap between forecast tax receipts and forecast spending.

For two years my life would revolve around getting that number down. We also had fiscal rules designed to reassure the markets by limiting borrowing. A £72billion black hole blew those rules out of the water. Indeed, it had spooked the markets so much that my predecessor had lost his job.

I had no idea how we were going to find that £72billion but I knew we would need radical and painful surgery. Tinkering over the odd hundred million would not cut it.

But even before I had a solution, I somehow needed to reassure financial markets and the public that we would act responsibly. So even though the next day was a Saturday, I embarked on a painful set of media interviews.

In the Today programme green room, I brushed past actress Miriam Margolyes. She went on air to say she had wished me luck but had really wanted to say: ‘F*** you, you bastard.’

I got a grovelling apology from the BBC, although I later learnt they privately congratulated her. In the grander scheme of things, it was a tiny issue. But it showed how high emotions were running. People were scared.

We were working on the assumption that the markets needed a new set of plans to be announced quickly, in a matter of days.

The Prime Minister had invited me and the family to lunch at Chequers to discuss this in more detail. I thought about what I should advise her. I also had to get my head round some extremely complex financial market issues. I had run a small business but that was about as close as it got.

Around me, however, I had a Treasury A-team of economists with double firsts. So I decided to follow a simple rule: if I didn’t understand what they were saying, I would tell them. Luckily, they were always happy to explain – they needed the Chancellor to know what the hell he was doing.

I also called a few ex-Chancellors for their advice. I spoke to Philip Hammond, Sajid Javid and George Osborne.

Saj told me I should worry about the high level of volatility in the markets, particularly when they opened on Monday morning. Robert Jenrick messaged me to say the same thing.

Like me, they were worried by a mounting sense of chaos following a poorly received Press conference the Prime Minister had given. She had announced a further U-turn on her mini-Budget by scrapping its corporation tax cut, but the way the announcement came across meant it backfired.

I held a conference call with James Bowler, the top official at the Treasury, and his chief economist Clare Lombardelli, and together we concluded we needed to head off the risk of markets plummeting by making an announcement early on Monday.

It would say quite simply that we were reversing nearly all the measures in Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-Budget. But would the Prime Minister agree?

Back at the Hunt home, there was big excitement about going to Chequers for lunch. The children dressed up in their Sunday best for their first ever visit to the Prime Minister’s historic country house.

In the car, my ten-year-old daughter Anna entertained our new team of police protection officers by mimicking different accents, one of her specialities.

On arrival I sat down privately with the Prime Minister. To her credit, she fully understood the risks we faced. She told me I had absolute freedom to do what was necessary – and she was as good as her word. We agreed that I would make a public statement the next morning and another in Parliament in the afternoon. The next morning, I sat behind my brand new Chancellor’s desk as I announced the reversal of the mini-Budget and that ‘the United Kingdom will always pay its way’.

The statement was well received by the markets. In the House of Commons, the reception was more mixed because the Conservatives were in shock and Labour was baying for blood.

Then on Tuesday came my first Cabinet meeting as Chancellor. We still had that enormous black hole, so I had decided I would ask every department for cuts, with plans to be delivered by the end of the week.

I caught the Prime Minister for a minute beforehand and told her that’s what I needed to do. Again, she did not demur.

I was the last to take my seat at the Cabinet table. As I looked around, the hostility was palpable. Many were quite tribal in their allegiance, not just to the Conservative Party but to their wing of the party. I was not ‘their kind’ of Conservative and there was deep resentment that the mini-Budget gamble had misfired.

There was no possibility of placating them, so I didn’t try. I said that every department would need to send me scenarios of 10 per cent and 15 per cent cuts in their budget. One let out an audible groan and attacked me for appointing four bankers as advisers. I replied that, of all times, now was a moment we needed to get advice from ‘outside the Blob’.

Back in the Treasury, meeting after meeting took place to bridge the £72billion hole. After the mini-Budget reversals, we had got it down to £40billion but there was a long way to go to meet our fiscal rules.

By the end of Wednesday that week, the scorecard still showed a £10billion gap.

We had raised every invisible tax, cut discretionary spending programmes, imposed painful future cuts on ‘unprotected departments’ – in other words anything except the NHS and schools. We managed to find more money for these two and a big increase for social care, which I had long worried about.

I sent the team away to find £4billion more tax increases and £4billion more spending cuts overnight. Nuts.

When I met Conservative backbenchers at the 1922 Committee later that day, I got a surprisingly supportive reception. Maybe they were rallying around in a crisis. Maybe they were grateful for my brutal honesty.

More likely, I thought wistfully, it’s because I had announced I didn’t want to be Prime Minister. You’re never more liked than when you are out of the race.

The next day I had a meeting with Liz Truss. It had been scheduled as a meeting with officials but a message came through that she wanted to see me alone. I knew something was up. We went into a boudoir she had created just off the Cabinet Room, where there was space for little more than a sofa and two armchairs.

‘I don’t think it’s sustainable,’ she told me for the second time in a week. ‘Tiz [Therese Coffey, the deputy prime minister] wants me to battle on, but I don’t think I can.’ She then outlined two options. The first was to trigger a four-week leadership contest.

The second was to stay on with a ‘unity cabinet’ for six months and ‘see where we’ve got to’ in the summer.

I knew neither option would satisfy the markets.

‘Prime Minister,’ I told her, ‘since the moment you asked me to do this job you have been incredibly brave and acted in the national interest.

‘You changed your Chancellor, reversed totemic policies and sat next to me in Parliament as I announced the changes.

‘Now, if you are going, it’s in the national interest that you do it quickly, because otherwise the markets will collapse. You need to make sure your successor is in place within a week. Then your legacy will be that you acted for the best for the country at a time of crisis.’

She nodded. We stood up. I gave her an awkward hug. Whatever her mistakes, her decision at that moment was gutsy.

I called Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, which formally represents all Conservative MPs. I told him the Prime Minister was about to ask to see him. I asked him to back me up by telling her it really did need to be a quick one-week process if we were to avoid market meltdown. He agreed.

I then called in party chairman Jake Berry for an emergency meeting. I asked two senior Treasury officials to explain to him the impact a prolonged leadership campaign would have on the markets. He was, it is fair to say, deeply suspicious. Part of him may have been wondering about my own motives, so I reiterated that I would not personally put my hat into the ring to be Prime Minister.

But he got the point on the markets and agreed to make a few calls to get the party board on side. At 2.30pm, the Prime Minister announced she was resigning, with her successor to be in place within a week.

By Friday lunch – in less than a week – we had turned a £72billion deficit into a £10billion surplus.

I had, incidentally, rejected the idea of increasing employers’ national insurance, even though it was one of the options presented to me – and easier politically than the income tax threshold freezes I extended. More than anything at that moment, I needed the economy to grow and I knew that raising national insurance would damage investment and job creation.

At that point, I had no idea if I would still be Chancellor when the package of new measures was announced. In the event, I stayed for nearly two years under the new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. I didn’t know him well and he had no obligation to keep me on but I had calmed the markets and he decided it was not a time for further changes.

They were the two most remarkable years of my professional life. I didn’t get everything right. To my disappointment I left much unfinished business, particularly on reforming welfare and improving public sector productivity and getting taxes down further.

But on the positive side of the ledger, the markets stabilised, inflation fell sharply, unemployment stayed low and we comfortably headed off what the Bank of England predicted would be the longest recession in a century.

Nonetheless, the mini-Budget – and the circumstances in which I had become Chancellor – were not our country’s finest hour, to say the least. Nor has the page been turned under my successor, Rachel Reeves, who has had her own issues when it comes to the confidence of the markets.

What makes things worse is that our current economic travails have come after a series of other destabilising events: a once-in-a-century pandemic, the Partygate scandal, an energy crisis and hike in inflation, a messy Brexit process with a hung parliament, and austerity.

Some of the pressures have been caused by ‘black swan’ events like the global financial crisis, the pandemic or Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But others have been self-inflicted, by parties of both colours.

Whatever the rights or wrongs, my party was in charge during many of them. In the 2024 general election, we paid the price.

Adapted from Can We Be Great Again? by Jeremy Hunt (Swift Press, £20), to be published 5th June. © Jeremy Hunt 2025. To order a copy for £22.50 (offer valid to 07/06/25; UK P&P free on offers over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.