If Team Boris thought thought Hunt would be a pushover then this afternoon should disabuse them

On his first big showing he’s exceeded expectations

The story during the final part of the MP balloting for the CON leadership was that Team Boris was working at ways to have their man fight Hunt in the membership part of the selection rather than Michael Gove.

Whether the Foreign Secretary’s two vote margin over Gove on Thursday was really down to a Boris plan to make sure he was facing Hunt we don’t know. But on the basis of this afternoon’s first hustings, ably chaired by Ian Dale, Hunt is going to be a bigger challenge than they first thought.

He’s articulate and lucid in a quiet sort of way and the contrast with the earlier session with Johnson was very great indeed. Hunt goes to great lengths to answer the question and there was no element of him trying to be evasive.

I thought Dale really put him through it and gave him the sort of scrutiny that TMay would have benefited from if she hadn’t been given her unexpected coronation three years ago. Check out his performance in the latter part of this YouTube

Will it matter given the overwhelming backing for Boris? That’s hard to say and it was very noticeable how vocal the ex-Mayor’s backers were when Iain Dale put Johnson under some pressure over the incidents at his flat.

Whatever I think this is going to be a more interesting fight than we anticipated.

Mike Smithson

Follow @MSmithsonPB



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