Hello and welcome to the Political Party. Today's guest is Jeremy Hunt, the former Foreign

Secretary for the Health Secretary, current chair of the Health and Social Care Committee,

where he's been instrumental in holding the government to account over their handling

of the coronavirus pandemic. And of course, in 2019, almost became Prime Minister, but

it was defeated at the final hurdle by Boris Johnson, the man who was currently at

time of recording, Prime Minister, and on Boris Johnson, don't forget you can email

the show, politicalpartypodcast.gmail.com with your encounters with politicians, particularly

if they were in a strange location or if the encounter itself was a bit odd. Jonathan

has been in touch, and so about 12 years ago, I was working in the House of Commons for

an MP. At the time, Boris Johnson was mayor of London. One day, he came to Portcullis House

to have a meeting with my MP and I had to greet him from reception and bring him up to

the office. My MP was running late. Ah, I'm already annoyed for something that happened

12 years ago. Politicians on the whole do run late and it's a terrible trait. And I think

it's because they don't like to say, sorry, this meeting has to end. They like to make

that person feel special. The problem is, they're not making the next person really annoyed.

That sets in a chain of domino effect, where you're only pleased in the person at the

start of the day anyway. Whilst we were waiting, BJ noticed a book on my desk. It was one of

E. N. Del's collection of counterfactual histories. Jonathan, I already know which one you're

going to say and not because I've read the email in advance. This one was entitled, Prime

Minister Boris, another things that never happened. We had a conversation about the accuracy

of this title, which concluded with me telling him that, quote, you never know, you could become

Prime Minister one day. He grinned and responded by saying, yup, you never knew. Wow, I like

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