I was listening to a radio profile of the Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, recently, which featured an interview with his best friend at Oxford. As they graduated, Hunt had sent him a warm note that signed off, “See you at Westminster.”
I pondered this letter all day. What monumental self-belief. A 21-year-old certain that the British people would choose to elect him. This seemed to me distinct from ambition: it was presumption. And Hunt was right. He did see his friend Mark Field in Westminster when they both became Conservative MPs.
It set me wondering whether the young Jeremy was a boy of exceptional talents, on an inexorable ascent to a great ministry of state. Or if his education had played a significant part, informing