The mutter in the Tory gutter has it that ‘Our Jeremy’ Hunt – our lily-livered MP cannot face the possibility of a ‘Portillo’ moment, so he may not be going head-to-head with Paul Follows in a General Election.

The PM intruded on the freeze on personal income tax allowances and did not raise them in line with inflation when he was chancellor, extended by Jeremy Hunt until 027/28. Today, the Landlord Bashing Renters Reform Bill!

Jeremy Hunt – bounda
ry changes are ‘terrible for me personally’

We here at the WW always knew the MP who ditched SW Surrey for Godalming, and Ash feared Waverley’s leader in a straight fight for the constituency.  Fear of fearless Follows has often prevented Jeremy from meeting with his bete noire Waverley’s Lim Dem Leader despite his constituents’ local council needs and pressing \Waverley issues.

People before politics? Not for Our Jeremy.

So as defeat looms, rather than face Follows and risk the ignominy of returning to the back benches or, worse, facing redundancy, he will swap his ministerial trappings for some moth-eaten ermine in the Lords. Oops! Didn’t we hear that should a Labour Government be elected, it wants to dump the plumply salaried 900-plus members of the second chamber?  After all, where will that lot go when the multi-billion pound de-camp for the refurbishment of Westminster begins?

Lord & Lady Hunt will no doubt spend more time with their families in China and beyond, boosting their buy-to-let income and moving on to the public speaker circuit with the phalanx of all those other has-been politicians.

Tensions mount as Tories are being trounced in their safest citadels. Fear permeates the local Tory HQs in Guildford and Farnham.  Party workers for both MP Angela Richardson and Jeremy Hunt willing to go out onto the doorsteps are diminishing. One told the Waverley Web,

“It was no fun on the doorsteps in the May local elections. Some of us heard language from voters only fit for the docks. I don’t blame Jeremy if he jacks it in; he’s had a good innings; the writing is on the wall.”

Hunts advisor has told constituents he will stand. WW believes he will go, but if he knows he is off, should he be delivering the Autumn Budget Statement? In the wake of the recent seismic by-election results, he is expected to announce he is stepping down; the question is, when? The storm clouds have been gathering over his Hascombe home at Mares Pond for months; he can see defeat for himself and the Party on all sides and has no intact constituency. We are not even sure he knows where Ash is.  He has bombarded the areas he had hoped to represent with leaflets in his new patch around the towns and villages, but the response was less than enthusiastic.

A couple of days ago, the Lib Dems announced that Paul Follows had been selected to stand for the Godalming & Ash seat.