Jeremy Hunt (politician)

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For other persons named Jeremy Hunt, see Jeremy Hunt (disambiguation).

Jeremy Hunt (born November 1, 1966) is the Conservative MP for Surrey South West.

Contents

[edit] Family and Early Life

The eldest son of Nicholas Hunt, Jeremy Hunt was raised near Godalming in Surrey in the heart of the constituency that he now represents in Parliament. He still lives in the seat at Farnham.

Jeremy's father was a senior officer in the Royal Navy and he grew up in an economically-privileged family in which great emphasis was laid on hardwork and achievement.

[edit] Education and youth

Hunt attended Charterhouse School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he achieved a First in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). In private he later described the last year of his degree as one of the toughest in his life because of the stress imposed by his effort to obtain a First.

Shortly after graduating he became a management consultant before resigning to become a teacher of English as a foreign language in Japan. Japan made a big impact on Hunt - he became a proficient speaker of Japanese and an enthusiast for modern Japanese culture.

For many years, Japan, politics, his business interests, and a busy social life were Hunt's main passions.

On his return to Britain, Hunt joined and becames a director of Profile PR - a public relations agency specializing in IT that had been co-founded by a childhood friend; an entrepreneur called Mike Elms.

With clients such as BT, Bull Integris, and Zetafax Profile did well during the IT boom of the mid nineteen nineties.Hunt and Elms later sold their interest in Profile in order to concentrate on directory publishing. Together they founded a company now known as Hotcourses. This new direction reflected Hunt's lifelong interest in education and going on courses to learn new skills.

[edit] Politics and Political Views

An ardent Tory of the same generation as David Cameron and Boris Johnson Hunt became fired with enthusiasm for politics during the Thatcher Years of the 1980s - a period which coincided with his time at Oxford University.

Whilst at University he became deeply involved in the Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA).

Hunt himself is an idealist who believes in the traditional Tory philosophy of maximising the individual liberty of the citizen within the framework of a strong nation state.

He has founded a charity to help fund the education of AIDS orphans in Africa. As a result AIDS has become one of his special areas of expertise as an MP.

Hunt hung back for many years from putting himself forward for selection as a parliamentary candidate. When asked why he argued that he felt that he had "not achieved enough" in the real world outside politics.

In the last two years of the twentieth century, Hunt's enthusiasm for the Conservitive party cooled as the Tories seemed incapable of modernising themselves following the 1997 victory of Tony Blair and New Labour. Part of this was disgust at the in-fighting and lack of direction shown by the members of the Tory Party.

Hunt even toyed with the idea of not standing as a candidate when he learned in 2003 that the former constituency of his patron, Virginia Bottomley, would soon become available. However he put his name forward, and was selected to fight one of the most marginal seats in the country, defending a majority of only 861 votes against a very aggressive campaign by the Liberal Democrats.

In the event his efforts paid off, and Jeremy Hunt was elected at the 2005 general election, after Virginia Bottomley became a life peer. He won the constituency with an increased majority of 5,711.

After supporting David Cameron's bid for leadership of the Conservative Party, he was appointed Shadow Minister for Disabled People in December 2005.

[edit] Hunt's Election Results

General Election 2005: South West Surrey
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Conservative Jeremy Hunt 26,420 50.4 +5.1
Liberal Democrats Simon Cordon 20,709 39.5 -4.1
Labour Tom Sleigh 4,150 7.9 -0.8
UKIP Timothy Clark 958 1.8 -0.6
Veritas Glenn Platt 172 0.3 N/A
Majority 5,711 10.9
Turnout 52,409 71.8 +1.5
Conservative hold Swing +4.6

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Virginia Bottomley		 Member of Parliament for South West Surrey
2005 – present		 Incumbent
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