Esther McVey and the chequered history of the Tory ‘dream ticket’

Jeremy Hunt and the former breakfast TV host are not the first Tory odd couple as Sean O’Grady explains

Hunt has recruited someone with red-wall appeal (PA)

Jeremy Hunt’s nomination of Esther McVey as his deputy-leader designate – and therefore also deputy-prime minister designate – is certainly something of a surprise. He is often lazily thought of as a kind of moderate in Tory terms, having expressed some caution about radical tax cuts and previously having backed Remain in the EU referendum and ruled out a no-deal Brexit in the traumas of 2016 to 2019. He remained aloof from the Johnson cabinet.

McVey, on the other hand, is critical of Johnson for not being aggressive enough on the EU, or on tax cuts or on refugees. Of course, there has been some convergence in their stances lately, with Hunt advocating a widening of the Rwanda scheme to other host nations, but there’s no denying that Hunt and McVey are an odd couple.

What’s in it for them? You’d suspect that Hunt is desperate to widen his appeal and dissolve the assumption he’s some sort of liberal “Remoaner”, hence tacking hard to the right and recruiting someone with red-wall appeal to balance his southern background. It may be she was the only person on that wing willing to join Team Hunt, given that he’s been the antithesis of populism since losing the leadership race in 2019. It may also be that a fine grace-and-favour country house for Deputy Prime Minister McVey, such as Dorneywood, may also have been an attraction for her and her husband Phil Davies, MP for Shipley. A handy backbench “buy one, get one free”, then.