Jeremy Hunt has said Liz Truss is “in charge” of the country not him, after he took over as chancellor and junked most of the prime minister’s economic plan.
It came after after an ally of Hunt said the chancellor would be the government’s “chief executive” while Truss stayed on as “chairman”.
Hunt was appointed chancellor by the PM on Friday after she sacked Kwasi Kwarteng in an attempt to rescue her premiership.
The mini-Budget which triggered market chaos and tanked the Conservative Party’s poll rating now looks set to be largely axed by Hunt when he reveals a new Budget on October 31.
Westminster is consumed by speculation that Tory MPs could soon move to oust the prime minister, with one accusing No.10 of having behaved like “libertarian jihadists”.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Hunt was asked if it was him who was really running the country.
“The prime minister’s in charge,” he said. Asked if that is really the case, Hunt added: “Yeah.”
The chancellor acknowledged Truss had been under “extraordinary pressure” over the past few days.
Asked if he would run to be Tory leader again, Hunt said: “I think having run two leadership campaigns and by the way, having failed in both of them, the desire to be leader has been clinically excised from me.”
Hunt ran in the 2019 and the 2022 leadership contests.
But Steve Brine, a Tory MP who worked with Hunt when he was health secretary, has not denied Hunt might still fancy the top job.
“You should see Liz Truss as the chairman and Jeremy Hunt as the chief executive,” he said.
“And I think he’ll be a very effective chief executive and like a new football manager coming in, at the end of the day the supporters are happy when the team is winning.”
Brine added: “I’m a great fan of crossing bridges when you come to them. And Jeremy will be 100% focused on being chancellor.
“I think he has quite enough to do but he obviously has made no secret of the fact that he wanted the top job when he stood against Boris Johnson and this time, which didn’t quite work out for him.”
Rishi Sunak, the defeated leadership contender and former chancellor, as well as Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, have also been among the names flagged as potential new prime ministers.