He did not answer the Prime Minister's phone, thinking it was a "joke"

Jeremy Hunt was "surprised" by Terrace's offer to take over the finance portfolio

Hunt before the terrace show after only 10 minutes.

AFP

Former British Prime Minister Liz Truss called Conservative politician Jeremy Hunt to give him the finance portfolio, but he didn't answer it at first, thinking someone was joking with him.

Hunt was enjoying an extended vacation in Belgium with his wife Lucia, 44, and their three young children.

He was wishing himself to step aside from politics, after a busy summer of campaigning for the Conservative leadership, and withdrew completely from frontline politics after his agonizing loss in a leadership election, so when his phone rang early in the morning, a number he didn't recognize, he ignored him.

However, the call was back-to-back, and a text message followed that made Hunt laugh out loud.

"Jeremy, this is Liz Truss, please contact me urgently," the message read.

Hunt told his wife that someone was joking with him and pretending to be a terrace.

But it so happened that Trass, pressured by growing public anger over former finance minister Kwasi Kwarting's mini-budget, decided to ditch its first chancellor just 38 days after his inauguration.

At about 1.30 noon on Friday, October 14, when Quarting arrived in London from America, and before he landed at Heathrow, Terrace had already settled on replacing him.

Later in the morning, Terrace instructed its officials to contact the Hunt Constituency office in southwest Surrey.

A little over 30 minutes later, the embarrassed Hunt finally returned to the prime minister's call, and was said to have been amazed at the job offer, and asked for some time to consider the offer, and that it only took him 10 minutes.

After consulting his wife, Hunt contacted Terrace to agree to the offer, albeit with a long list of conditions about eliminating swathes of Quarting's budget.

The Prime Minister did not take much time to be convinced.

Hunt traveled back to London on the Eurostar at lunchtime with his wife, with a gift of expensive Belgian chocolates to Terrace.

After his defeat in the leadership election, many people - including Hunt himself - thought his life on the front lines of British politics was over.

There has even been speculation that he will step down in the upcoming elections.

Last Sunday, when Hunt went to the ministry to talk about his new role, he took his family with him.

Hunt's children (Jack, 12, Anna, 10, and Eleanor, 8) played with Terrace's daughter Liberty and son Frances, while Hunt's wife and Terrace's husband, Hugh O'Leary, 48, strolled around.

Later, the two families had lunch together.

It was the first time that Trace and Hunt had spent a relatively long time together since June, when they were at the foreign affairs summit in Paris.

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