Can We Be Great Again? E-Book

Jeremy Hunt

• Herausgeber: Swift Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 358

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

'A masterly analysis of why Britain has much more global influence than it thinks' Eric Schmidt, former CEO Google 'Enthralling' Daily Mail Since the global financial crisis, Britain has been through a difficult period, leading many to conclude the country is doomed to inevitable decline. Jeremy Hunt was at the top of government as both Foreign Secretary and Chancellor. In Can We Be Great Again? he persuasively rebuts those who think Britain is no longer capable of shaping the world we live in. With the election of President Trump, a world that was already becoming more dangerous has also become more unpredictable. But when it comes to the big challenges facing the world – whether on European security, the future of democracy, migration, trade or climate - the UK remains one of the most influential countries. Hunt does not shy away from our weaknesses but argues that they should be considered in perspective and without underestimating our many strengths. If we want a world that remains safe and free, now is the time for countries with influence to use it wisely.

Leseprobe

Praise for Jeremy Hunt’s Zero

‘A real understanding of the NHS’s many problems… essential reading for everybody involved in healthcare’

Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm

‘A thoughtful, serious and well-written book that tackles an immensely important subject’

Rachel Clarke, Observer

‘Humane and often persuasive…I expect that, if his suggestions were generally followed, thousands fewer would die unnecessarily’

Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph

‘A deeply moving personal account about what needs to change in the NHS – I wish I had read it when I started out as a doctor’

Dame Clare Gerada

‘A timely, salutary and occasionally contrarian intervention with an honesty and humanity that will rightly shape the NHS for years to come’

Lord Simon Stevens,former Chief Executive NHS England

‘A compelling vision of what the NHS, and every other healthcare system in the world, can do to reduce avoidable harm’

Chris Hopson,former Chief Executive NHS Providers

‘Readable, honest and sometimes unsettling… a powerful case for transparency and supporting a frontline workforce under huge pressure’

Dame Clare Marx,former President of the Royal College of Surgeons

Contents

Foreword by Eric SchmidtIntroduction 1 Security Anchor 2 Democracy Champion 3 Tackling Mass Migration 4 Climate and Energy Leader 5 Free Trade Advocate 6 Pandemic Prevention 7 Human Rights Voice 8 The Next Silicon Valley 9 A Global Vocation Letter to Sir Keir StarmerPostscriptNotesImage Credits

Foreword

In 1976, when Henry Kissinger served as Secretary of State under Gerald Ford, he travelled to Arizona to deliver a speech entitled ‘A Strong Foreign Policy for a Confident America’. The speech was concerned with what Henry perceived as growing pessimism among the American public about the US’s role in the world. Public opinion on foreign policy, he remarked, is like a swinging pendulum: ‘From over-involvement to a new isolationism; from enthusiasm to disillusionment; and back again.’ Today, in the US and across the West – including, notably, in the UK – we find ourselves swinging toward an era of disillusionment.

A 2024 poll commissioned by Ipsos and King’s College London is illustrative of this trend. Surveying nearly 24,000 people across 31 countries, respondents were asked to grade whether various countries use their influence for good or for bad in the world. Compared to when the survey was last conducted in 2019, people in most countries viewed US influence on the world stage more favourably. But there was one major exception: the US itself. Americans were much more wary of their country’s global role than they were five years ago. The same sentiment was true for the UK. Compared to the rest of the world, the Brits viewed the UK more negatively than they did in 2019. Across many democracies, we are suffering from an epidemic of self-loathing.

Self-criticism, as Henry asserted in the Arizona speech, is inevitable in a democracy – and, I would add, often even productive. But if doubts obscure our collective ability to appreciate a national project – if we ‘create an impression of impatience or uncertainty’, as he put it – the consequences could be dire. Henry emigrated to the US in 1938 as a Jewish refugee fleeing Nazi persecution in Germany; thirteen of his relatives, including his grandmother and four of his father’s sisters, were killed in the Holocaust. The collapse of German democracy forced Henry early in his life to reckon with the fact that democracies can be precious and fragile systems. They can be stripped away at a moment’s notice if we forget why they are worth defending.

When I joined Henry on his last trip to China in 2023, we spoke at length about how his visits there had evolved since his first trip in 1971. Over time, he said, our Chinese counterparts had become more self-assured in their engagements. That’s no surprise – since 1971, China’s GDP has grown nearly 180-fold, from below $100 billion in 1971 to almost $18 trillion as of 2023. Yet it marked a glaring contrast to my conversations with leaders in the West and especially in the US, many of whom have grown more timid, more reticent, and more doubtful over the years. This is true even as America’s share of global GDP has hardly declined since 1980. What struck me then, as it had struck me in all our conversations over the decades, was Henry’s fundamental insight that power in international relations stems not just from objective capabilities, but from the perception of strength and the willingness to deploy it strategically.

This understanding – that national power is as much about psychology and self-perception as it is about GDP figures or military capabilities – is what makes Can We Be Great Again? so timely and profound. As I read Jeremy’s careful and personal analysis of Britain’s position in the world order, I was repeatedly reminded of conversations with Henry about how nations can punch above their weight through strategic thinking and calculated diplomacy. Henry would have recognised in Jeremy’s work the same clear-eyed realism that he himself brought to international relations, combined with an understanding that excessive pessimism can ultimately become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The parallels between Britain’s situation and America’s current crisis of confidence are striking and instructive. Jeremy is unequivocal about Britain’s potential for global leadership, even amid a changing world order – and rightly so. As he points out, Britain sits among the top ten most influential countries in the world, and that power can be put to good use. Just look at how the UK has carved its role around AI, the defining technology of our era. It is home to some of the world’s most innovative AI research labs, and it has emerged as the global leader for AI safety, having established the first publicly-backed AI Safety Institute and hosted the inaugural global AI Safety Summit. Too often, our public discourse focuses on the threats posed by AI rather than our ability to shape its development in accordance with democratic values. This defensive mindset, this lack of confidence in our ability to lead, and the fixation on mere responses, is precisely what Jeremy identifies as the core challenge facing Britain – and, I would argue, facing America as well.

Despite remaining the world’s leading superpower, with unmatched military capabilities, and the world’s most dynamic and resilient economy, the US has become increasingly susceptible to a narrative of decline that threatens to reshape our global role. Just as Jeremy identifies a peculiarly British form of declinism, we in America have our own version – a creeping doubt about our ability to lead, innovate, and shape global outcomes. As Jeremy notes, over two thirds of the UK population believe their country is in decline. Similarly, according to Pew Research, 71% of Americans think the US will be less important in the world by 2050. It is remarkable that, in 2024, the American economy was crowned ‘the envy of the world’ by the Economist, outperforming every other developed nation along a number of metrics – and that same year, only around 20% of Americans were satisfied with the direction of the country in Gallup’s monthly polls.

The depth of this pessimism, and its striking disconnect from objective measures of national strength and relative well-being, points to a deeper crisis of democratic governance itself. As Jeremy highlights, in 2023 a whopping 83% of Americans, 70% of Brits, 74% of French, and 63% of Germans believed that elected officials don’t value what they think. When citizens lose faith in their governments, even world-leading GDP figures and technological achievements ring hollow. Democratic nations must undertake the hard work of rebuilding trust and reinvigorating confidence among their citizens.

If not, the epidemic of self-loathing will continue to fester in distinct ways on either side of the Atlantic. In Britain, as Jeremy astutely observes, it often takes the form of a reflexive self-deprecation about the country’s diminished standing in the post-imperial era. In America, it appears as a growing isolationism, a belief that global leadership is too costly or too complex to maintain. Both forms of this crisis are dangerous, not just for our respective nations but for the global order that we helped create and sustain. The world Jeremy describes in these pages is one facing unprecedented challenges: from the rise of authoritarian powers to the existential threat of climate change, from the disruption of supply chains to the emergence of new technologies that will reshape humanity. These seismic shifts demand confident leadership from democratic nations.

Countries like Britain and America, with their deep democratic traditions, innovative capabilities, and extensive diplomatic networks, are uniquely positioned – likely the best positioned – to provide this leadership. But as Jeremy correctly identifies, this can only happen if they reject the temptation to retreat into nostalgic decline or defensive isolationism. The special relationship between our two countries was built not just on shared values and interests, but on a shared confidence in our ability to forge a better world. In the post-war period, this confidence helped build the most successful international order in human history – an order that, as Jeremy notes, has created more freedom and prosperity than any that preceded it. Today, as that order faces growing challenges from all directions – a revanchist Russia, an emboldened China, a turbulent Iran – the need for confident democratic leadership is greater than ever. Can We Be Great Again? invites us into that very conversation.

What makes this book particularly valuable is its combination of realism and optimism. Jeremy doesn’t shy away from Britain’s challenges or limitations, but he also recognises its enduring strengths and influence. This honest assessment is exactly what democratic nations need at this critical moment. In fact, in that same 1976 Arizona speech, Henry Kissinger maintained, ‘The optimist is not one who pretends that challenges do not exist – that is escapism. The true optimist has faith in his nation; he believes that challenges are to be mastered – not avoided.’ Democratic nations everywhere are facing grave challenges indeed. Now they must master them.

Eric Schmidt, January 2025

If you are just realistic, you become pedestrian […] you will fail. Therefore, you must be able to soar above the reality and say, ‘This is also possible.’

Lee Kuan Yew

Introduction

On Friday, 14 October 2022, I woke up in a comfortable Brussels hotel.

Having tried – and failed – to become Conservative leader for the third time that summer, I was coming to terms with life on the back benches. I had published a book on the NHS and was touring rather enjoyable book festivals. After nearly a decade in the cabinet, I was also trying to be a better dad.

My wife, Lucia, doesn’t like flying, so we were on a Eurostar weekend. The night before we had gone out for dinner in the old quarter of Brussels and tried some tasty moules frites with Belgian beer. The next morning, as Lucia was cleaning her teeth, I looked at my phone. A message from an unrecognised number jumped out at me: ‘Please can you give me a call. Liz Truss here.’

My first reaction was disbelief. ‘Darling,’ I shouted out to Lucia, ‘I can’t believe how naive people think I am. Someone just tried to message me pretending to be Liz Truss. It’s probably a radio show host trying a hoax call.’ I ignored the message. We went downstairs for breakfast. I had French toast.

Then we went back to our room to get ready for some sightseeing. But on my phone were two more messages. One was from friend and former special adviser Christina Robinson asking if I knew that No. 10 was trying to get in touch. Another text from another unrecognised number asked me to call ‘No 10 switch’ as the No. 10 switchboard is known.

I was too suspicious to call back on the number given, but managed to find a different one for No. 10 in my contacts. Gingerly, I told the operator that it was probably a hoax, but I had received a message asking me to speak to the prime minister. ‘No, it’s not a hoax, she does want to speak to you,’ the operator replied. ‘But I’m afraid she’s on the other line, can we call you back?’ Within seconds the prime minister magically became available. I was put through.

Liz Truss and I had never been close politically. She had not supported any of my attempts to become leader, nor had I backed her in that summer’s bitter leadership contest against Rishi Sunak. But on a personal level, relations had always been cordial. I respected her ballsiness and she was always fun company. When she became Foreign Secretary, she invited me in to pick my brains, a courtesy not always observed by others.

But this was a different and rather shorter conversation. She started by saying things were not sustainable. I cut to the chase: ‘So how do you want me to help?’ She replied with one word: ‘Chancellor.’

Suddenly, the phone in my hand felt so hot that I wanted to drop it. Blimey, I thought, this was not what I was expecting. Unbelievable.

She was at pains to say that I was her first choice. She may have wondered if I had read press speculation that she would offer the job to Sajid Javid. I didn’t care in the slightest. I thanked her and asked for half an hour to think about it. Then I put the phone down and leapt in the air. ‘I don’t believe it! She’s offered me Chancellor,’ I said to Lucia, who also leapt up and hugged me.

We thought about it in a bit of a daze. The Chancellor has the second most powerful job in government and lives in Downing Street. Being offered the post is an enormous honour. But after September’s disastrous ‘mini-budget’, if ever there was a poisoned chalice it was this. I didn’t have much confidence that Liz Truss would last. I could be the shortest-serving Chancellor in history.

On the other hand, as I had learnt from Theresa May, prime ministers in difficulty can survive a long time. Maybe, even in a short time, I could push through some good things for the NHS. It may seem a bit narrow to have been thinking about the NHS at that moment, but for the previous two years I had been chair of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, and health policy had been my focus. I had recently been campaigning to increase the number of doctors and nurses we train for the NHS as part of a new long-term workforce plan. The Treasury had blocked it. If nothing else, perhaps I could push that through?

Then there was the family. It would be an adventure for my kids, aged eight, ten and twelve, to live in one of the most famous addresses in the country, even briefly. But since the rather traumatising junior doctors’ strike several years earlier, I had been promising Lucia that I would quit frontline politics. Despite that, I had agreed to be Foreign Secretary, and she had dropped everything (including her job) to support me. I even ran against Boris Johnson to be leader of the party and prime minister, again with her unstinting support. I felt like the political embodiment of St Augustine’s prayer, ‘Lord make me chaste – but not yet.’ So I wondered how Lucia would feel about an even bigger challenge, not least one involving the upheaval of moving to Downing Street.

I needn’t have worried. As always, when faced with my biggest challenges, she was all in.

There was one more person to consult. My brother Charlie had been battling cancer. The two of us had just run the London Marathon. Throughout the gruelling twenty-six miles, his right foot had been excruciatingly painful, but with enormous courage he managed to finish it. When I called him, he was thrilled. He said without hesitation that I should accept. We discussed what our late dad would have said. He had been an officer in the navy and had a strong sense of public duty. It wasn’t hard to work out.

So after just twenty minutes I called Liz Truss back and accepted.

I had just embarked on the biggest challenge of my life. I had plenty of experience in government but none of my roles had been in an economics or business portfolio. As someone who likes to plan meticulously for all possibilities, I was in a no man’s land. I had no idea how it would turn out. But even though I had been brought in to confront chaos and disfunction at the heart of the British state, I never lost my belief in the country. I explore and challenge the reasons why in this book.

We checked out of the hotel and got a taxi to Bruxelles-Midi station. In the train I was called by an official from the Cabinet Office for the standard pre-appointment checks. I had to move to the noisy corridor between carriages so as not to be overheard. The line cut out as we went through the Channel Tunnel, making the hurried process even more farcical.

When I got to my house in Pimlico, the press were already outside the door. An hour later I had changed into a suit and was on my way to Downing Street. After meeting the prime minister in the Cabinet Room, I walked out of No. 10. Media people told me I needed to head through the arch towards the Foreign Office, so journalists could get the pictures they wanted. Then I climbed into a car to travel the princely distance of around two hundred yards to my new office in His Majesty’s Treasury.

Treasury officials are the most feared in Whitehall. Fearsomely smart and tough negotiators, they are the part of government whose job is to say no. I once met an African leader who said he called his finance minister ‘Dr No’, which rather summed it up. But face to face I found them quite different. They were clever, decent, eager to help and loved a good debate. They demonstrated an abundance of the most important quality needed in any civil servant: telling you exactly what they really think. As I sat round the large meeting room table in the Chancellor’s office, I found they were surprisingly open to new ideas. It did not feel like a cult adhering to ‘Treasury orthodoxy’.

But I also sensed fear. The previous Chancellor had taken the rap for a budget that had gone wrong. The Treasury was in the spotlight as an institution. The economy, for which it was responsible, was teetering on the brink. And their new boss was a complete novice. I decided to put them at their ease. ‘Let me start by saying this,’ I said. ‘We are going to do whatever is right for the country. Even if it means I am a Ken Clarke Chancellor who makes the right decisions but ends up leaving a strong economy for his opponents to inherit.’ Little did I know how painfully close to the truth my words would end up.

Our first challenge was a black hole.

A real black hole, not one fabricated to create a political narrative (Rachel Reeves, please note). And it was £72 billion. That equated to more than 2% of GDP – or around 10p on income tax.1 Sorting it would require ‘consolidation’ – an economist’s euphemism for tax rises and spending cuts. I would end up implementing one of the biggest public finance consolidations ever.

But tough decisions are something the Treasury just gets on with. A well-oiled machine has a tried-and-tested process to guide ministers into making unpalatable choices. Officials introduced me to what they called a ‘scorecard’. It was a double-sided piece of A3 paper. On one side was a table detailing about £1 trillion of government spending. On the other side was another table with the equivalent £1 trillion in tax receipts – or actually less, which was why we had a black hole. Every number on the table was billions or millions. If it said ‘13,502’ that was £13.5 billion. Tucked away at the bottom of the back page was the crucial number that really mattered – the gap between forecast tax receipts and forecast spending. For two years my life would revolve around getting that number down.

We also had fiscal rules designed to reassure the markets by limiting borrowing. A £72 billion black hole blew those rules out of the water. Indeed, it had spooked the markets so much that my predecessor had lost his job. I knew we would need radical and painful surgery. Tinkering over the odd hundred million would not cut it. Now I was in the hot seat, it came home to me why people really care about who the Chancellor is and what they do. Budget decisions affect the family finances of every household in the country. People’s homes, holidays, childcare and nights out depend on what goes into a budget. You don’t want to get the decisions wrong.

I had no idea how we were going to find the £72 billion. But somehow, even before I had a solution, I needed to reassure financial markets and the public that we would act responsibly. So even though the next day was a Saturday, I embarked on a painful set of media interviews. In the Today programme green room, I brushed past actress Miriam Margolyes. She went on air to say she had wished me luck but had really wanted to say ‘F**k you, you bastard.’ I got a grovelling apology from the BBC, although I later learnt they privately congratulated her. In the grander scheme of things, it was a tiny issue. But it showed how high emotions were running. People were scared.

Then, after the media, it was back to the Treasury for a long weekend’s work. Lucia would have to deal with the kids – again.

At that stage we were working on the assumption that the markets needed a new set of plans to be announced in a matter of days. The prime minister had invited me and the family to lunch at Chequers to discuss this in more detail. I thought about what I should advise her. I also had to get my head round some extremely complex financial market issues. I had run a small business, but that was about as close as it got. Around me, however, I had a Treasury A-team of economists with double firsts. So I decided to follow a simple rule: if I didn’t understand what they were saying, I would tell them. Luckily, they were always happy to explain – they needed the Chancellor to know what the hell he was doing.

Towards the end of that Saturday, I headed down to my family in Surrey. In the car I decided to call a few ex-Chancellors for their advice. I spoke to Philip Hammond, Sajid Javid and George Osborne. Saj told me I should worry about the high level of volatility in the markets, particularly when they opened on Monday morning. Robert Jenrick messaged me to say the same thing. Like me, they were worried by a mounting sense of chaos following a poorly received press conference the prime minister had given. She had announced a further U-turn – on the mini-budget’s corporation tax cut – but the way the announcement came across meant it had backfired.

So I called James Bowler, the top official at the Treasury. His predecessor Tom Scholar had been unceremoniously sacked by my predecessor and James had only become permanent secretary a few days earlier. He looked and sounded like an archetypal mandarin. But if he was nervous about his new responsibilities, it didn’t show. Right from the outset – and throughout our time working together – he gave me wise and thoughtful advice.

I asked him if we needed to announce anything first thing on Monday to avoid a market collapse. He said he didn’t know but I was asking the right question. So we set up a conference call with the Treasury’s chief economist (now deputy governor of the Bank of England) Clare Lombardelli, another phenomenally clever official. Together we concluded we needed to head off the risk of markets plummeting by making an announcement early on Monday. It would say quite simply that we were reversing nearly all the measures in Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget. But would the prime minister agree?

Back home, there was big excitement about going to Chequers for lunch. The children dressed up in their Sunday best for their first ever visit to the prime minister’s historic country house. In the car my ten-year-old daughter Anna entertained our new team of police protection officers by mimicking different accents, one of her specialities. But I was only half paying attention as my mind raced with all the decisions we now faced. I prepared the arguments I would put to Liz Truss for making an announcement early on the Monday morning – particularly about the risk of market collapse.

On arrival I sat down privately with the prime minister. To her credit, she fully understood the risks we faced. She told me I had absolute freedom to do what was necessary – and she was as good as her word. We agreed that I would make a public statement the next morning and another in Parliament in the afternoon.

The next morning, I sat behind my brand-new Chancellor’s desk with a Union flag behind me. I remember feeling absurdly prime ministerial as I announced the reversal of the mini-budget and that ‘the United Kingdom will always pay its way’. The statement was well received by the markets. In the House of Commons the reception was more mixed, because the Conservatives were in shock and Labour was baying for blood.

Then on Tuesday came my first cabinet meeting as Chancellor. We still had that enormous black hole, so with five minutes to go I decided to ask every department for cuts, with plans to be delivered by the end of the week. I caught the prime minister for a minute beforehand and told her that was what I needed to do. Again, she did not demur.

I was the last to take my seat around the cabinet table. As I looked around, the hostility was palpable. Many were quite tribal in their allegiance, not just to the Conservative Party but to their wing of the party. I was not ‘their kind’ of Conservative and there was deep resentment that the mini-budget gamble had misfired. There was no possibility of placating them, so I didn’t try. I said that every department would need to send me scenarios of 10% and 15% cuts in their budget. One let out an audible groan and attacked me for appointing four bankers as advisers. I replied that, of all times, now was a moment we needed to get advice from ‘outside the blob’.

Back in the Treasury, meeting after meeting took place to bridge the £72 billion hole. After the mini-budget reversals we had got it down to £40 billion, but there was a long way to go to meet our fiscal rules. By the end of Wednesday that week, the scorecard still showed a £10 billion gap. We had raised every invisible tax, cut discretionary spending programmes, imposed painful future cuts on ‘unprotected departments’ – in other words anything except the NHS and schools. We managed to find more money for these two and a big increase for social care, which I had long worried about. I sent the team away and told them to find £4 billion more tax increases and £4 billion more spending cuts overnight. Nuts.

When I met Conservative backbenchers at the 1922 Committee later that day, I got a surprisingly supportive reception. Maybe they were rallying round in a crisis. Maybe they were grateful for my brutal honesty. More likely, I thought wistfully, it’s because I had announced I didn’t want to be prime minister. You’re never more liked than when you are out of the race.

The next day I had a meeting with Liz Truss. It had been scheduled as a meeting with officials to discuss the Autumn Statement, but a message came through that she wanted to meet me alone. I knew something was up. We went into a boudoir she had created just off the Cabinet Room, where there was space for little more than a sofa and two armchairs.

‘I don’t think it’s sustainable,’ she told me for the second time in a week. ‘Tiz [Thérèse Coffey] wants me to battle on, but I don’t think I can.’ She then outlined two options. The first was to trigger a four-week leadership contest. The second was to stay on with a ‘unity cabinet’ for six months and ‘see where we’ve got to’ in the summer.

I knew neither option would satisfy the markets and had thought carefully about what to say. ‘Prime Minister,’ I told her, ‘since the moment you asked me to do this job you have been incredibly brave and acted in the national interest. You changed your Chancellor, reversed totemic policies and sat next to me in Parliament as I announced the changes. Now, if you are going, it’s in the national interest that you do it quickly, because otherwise the markets will collapse. You need to make sure your successor is in place within a week. Then your legacy will be that you acted for the best for the country at a time of crisis.’ She nodded. We stood up. I gave her an awkward hug. Whatever her mistakes, her decision at that moment was gutsy.

Then I went back to the Treasury to make sure there was no backtracking. I called Graham Brady, chairman of the 1922 Committee, which formally represents all Conservative MPs. I told him the prime minister was about to ask to see him. I asked him to back me up by telling her it really did need to be a quick one-week process if we were to avoid market meltdown. He agreed but said it was up to the party. I advised him not to announce anything until the party had agreed as well. I then called in party chairman Jake Berry for an emergency meeting. I asked two senior Treasury officials to explain to him the impact a prolonged leadership campaign would have on the markets. He was, it is fair to say, deeply suspicious. Part of him may have been wondering about my own motives, so I reiterated that I would not personally put my hat into the ring to be prime minister. He told me he was worried a leadership contest would provoke an election the party could not afford to fight. But he got the point on the markets and agreed to make a few calls to get the party board on side. At 2.30 p.m. the prime minister announced she was resigning, with her successor to be in place within a week.

By Friday lunch – in less than a week – we had turned a £72 billion deficit into a £10 billion surplus. I had, incidentally, rejected the idea of increasing employers’ national insurance, even though it was one of the options presented to me – and easier politically than the income tax threshold freezes I extended. More than anything at that moment, I needed the economy to grow, and I knew that raising national insurance would damage investment and job creation. We were, however, helped at the last minute by some changed assumptions on GDP, which meant I was able to add back a small company R & D tax relief that had been pencilled in for a cut. But I still had no idea if I would be Chancellor when the package was announced.

In the event, I stayed for nearly two years. I didn’t know Rishi Sunak well and he had no obligation to keep me on, but I had calmed the markets and he decided it was not a time for further changes.

They were the two most remarkable years of my professional life. I didn’t get everything right. To my disappointment I left much unfinished business, particularly on reforming welfare, improving public sector productivity and getting taxes down further. But on the positive side of the ledger, the markets stabilised, inflation fell sharply, unemployment stayed low and we comfortably headed off what the Bank of England predicted would be the longest recession in a century.2

Nonetheless, the mini-budget – and the circumstances in which I had become Chancellor – were not our country’s finest hour, to say the least. Nor has the page been turned under my successor, who has had her own issues when it comes to the confidence of the markets. What makes things worse is that our current economic travails have come after a series of other destabilising events: a once-in-a-century pandemic, the Partygate scandal, an energy crisis and hike in inflation, a messy Brexit process with a hung parliament, and austerity. Some of the pressures have been caused by ‘black swan’ events like the global financial crisis or Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. But others have been self-inflicted – by parties of both colours. Whatever the rights or wrongs, my party was in charge during many of them. In the 2024 general election, we paid the price.

One consequence of so much upheaval has been a big decline in our national self-confidence. The number of people saying they are proud of Britain and its history has fallen from 86% to 64%.3 Over two thirds of the UK population now think the country is in decline, markedly more than in our peers. Nearly one third of young people say they want to move abroad.4 Many think we are finished as a serious player on the global stage.

The Brexit wars have played a part. Unreconciled Remainers feel unable to be positive about our future outside the EU. Brexiteers are disappointed that the benefits have been slower in coming than promised. I have always believed a successful Brexit is entirely possible – but by no means automatic. What we make of it depends on no one but ourselves. In the meantime, it has left many people feeling uncertain.

The political strategy of the incoming Labour government has also contributed. Like every new government, they set about blaming difficult decisions on their predecessors. But they went about the task with overblown relish, forgetting the real-world consequences of statements made by ministers. That was followed by some anti-business tax rises without any accompanying plan for growth. The result has been a vacuum, alongside a substantial decline in confidence among businesses, consumers and markets.

So should we just give up and go home?

Notwithstanding many mistakes made by governments, including the ones in which I served (and for which I was sometimes responsible), I always felt more positive about our prospects. As Foreign Secretary, I would point out that we have Europe’s biggest defence budget, its top universities and its most influential culture. As Chancellor I would cite figures showing that in the century of AI, we have the world’s third largest technology ecosystem after the US and China; or that vaccines and treatments developed in the UK saved more lives in the pandemic than those from any other country; or that, in the age of clean energy, we have one of the largest renewables sectors in Europe and the world’s largest wind farms. It was my job to present the UK in the best possible light – but I believed what I was saying.

Was I right?

That is the subject of this book.

Is there a path towards a more prosperous economy that enables us to shape the world as well as be shaped by it? Do we have the firepower to be a major world power alongside prosperity and decent public services at home? To paraphrase the MAGA movement in America, can we be great again?

Donald Trump was the most charismatic and enigmatic world leader I met in my time as Foreign Secretary. Our first encounter was just two days into my new job. It was at the now infamous NATO summit of 2018, when he nearly pulled America out of the alliance. Theresa May introduced me as her new Foreign Secretary, and Trump gripped me with one of his epic man-shakes. ‘Heard great things about you,’ he said to me. I was not convinced he had heard anything about me at all – but took the compliment.

I assumed he would not be interested in me, my being a mere Foreign Secretary. But in our meetings, he checked me out with his beady eyes, his mind clearly ticking over like the New York property developer he once was. ‘Do I go in high or low? What does this guy want? What does he not want?’ he seemed to be thinking.

A couple of days later we met again, this time at Chequers. The evening before I had done an interview on Fox News in which I had supported Trump’s demand that NATO allies should pay more towards the cost of defending Europe. My media minder was worried that I was being too pro-American. ‘Foreign Secretary,’ he told me gingerly, ‘you might want to remember that some British people watch Fox.’ But some Americans do too – notably the president himself. And often the best way to reach Trump was to do an interview on his favourite TV station. It got our relationship off to a good start. He greeted me with a big smile at the entrance to Chequers: ‘Great job on TV!’ Then, in case it went to my head, he added, ‘I said to my people I don’t know who the hell that guy is but he’s doing a great job.’

In a small way, I was about to see the ‘special relationship’ in action.

In the Great Hall at Chequers, the president and prime minister sat in the centre of a horseshoe of chairs. I sat alongside Theresa May. With us were the respective ambassadors and the president’s national security adviser, John Bolton. Theresa was an excellent prime minister in impossible circumstances; but she was not known for her small talk. There were a few awkward silences. What should her new Foreign Secretary do? After a couple of lengthy ones, I sprung into action.

I remembered a meeting with the then Canadian foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland, at the NATO summit two days earlier. She had warned me that brave humanitarian civil defence workers in Syria, known as the White Helmets, were at risk of being butchered by President Assad if he recaptured the south of the country. So I chipped in: ‘Mr President, if Assad wins, we need to think about what’s going to happen to the White Helmets.’

Cue worried looks from the prime minister. The topic was not in her briefing. She did not like her Foreign Secretary flying solo.

‘Are they good guys or bad guys?’ Trump asked.

‘Good guys,’ I replied.

At this point I had firmly come to the end of my knowledge about the White Helmets. However, I was saved by the British ambassador to Washington, Sir Kim Darroch, who passed me a note. It explained that the only way to extract the White Helmets from Syria was through the land border with Israel. The issue was that the Israelis did not allow any Syrians across the border. I dutifully read the contents of the note out.

‘The issue is that we cannot get them out without help from the Israelis.’

‘Well if they’re good guys we should get them out,’ said the most powerful man in the world.

Bolton, unlike the president, was totally across the issue. He said he would square off the Israelis. Before the end of lunch he had done just that. Two weeks later, 422 people – 98 White Helmets and their families – were smuggled to safety across the border into Israel. This was the ‘special relationship’ in action. It was also, for me, a lesson about modern diplomacy that often gets lost among the cocktail parties: occasionally you can get things done that help real people in the real world… albeit with a bit of help from Theresa May’s silences. The most treasured possession I have from my time as Foreign Secretary is not a lavish gift from a foreign government but a Syrian builder’s helmet.

Author meets President Trump at Chequers: shortly afterwards 98 White Helmets and their families were rescued from Syria

I also learnt from Trump the importance of communication. On another occasion, I asked General John Kelly, briefly his chief of staff, what time the president arrived for work in the Oval Office. ‘Just before midday,’ he said. ‘What on earth is he doing before that?’ I asked. Kelly replied he was in his private quarters in the White House, watching Fox and CNN and making comments on social media.

It’s easy to take a potshot at the ‘leader of the free world’ for such an unconventional start to his working day. But think of it another way: he is the first president for a long time who arrives in his office knowing exactly what America is thinking – and with America knowing exactly what he is thinking too. That focus on communication kept his base remarkably loyal, and led directly to his re-election.

Like every leader, Trump has failings, but negativity about Britain is not one of them. He thinks Brexit is a smart move and a ‘great thing’.5 In his first term, he championed a bilateral trade deal between the UK and the US. I was always sceptical that we would be willing to pay the price, particularly to open up our agricultural markets. But in every diplomatic interaction, a trade deal was top of his asks. His enthusiasm to help us make Brexit a success was palpable. The door was and is always open to a different kind of relationship to that intended for the EU or China.

Of course, we should not exaggerate our importance to his – or any – US administration. But how much we are listened to by a superpower depends partly on how much we believe in ourselves. And self-belief has to be based on reality.

So in researching and writing this book, I did something I could not do in office. I spent time looking at the evidence to see whether we can indeed aspire to be a ‘great’ country. My definition of a great country is one that is capable of shaping the world, and not just being shaped by it. In each chapter, I focus on a different global problem directly impacting on us in the UK. I look at European security following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the threat to democratic values posed by the rise of China; I examine the challenge of global migration flows, which have become a huge issue on both sides of the Atlantic; I look at trade, and – given Trump’s love of tariffs – ask how we should respond in a new era of mercantilism and protectionism; I also consider the danger to the planet posed by climate change and to our health posed by pandemics, the challenge of protecting human rights in an age of autocracies, and the risk of new technologies getting into the wrong hands.

In each case, I ask how we would want the problem to be addressed or solved, and what contribution – economic, military, scientific or political – Britain can realistically make to achieve that outcome. What influence do we have with friends and what leverage with foes? I then look at whether we have the resources to do so, given the pressures on the public purse, alongside any economic opportunities involved. In short, are we still an important country, and can we afford to be a force for good in the world?

If you polled people in the UK today, only a minority would say playing a more active role on the global stage was a priority. For them, being ‘great’ means better public services, higher wages and a higher standard of living. But all the issues I consider have a direct impact on everyone’s lives – whether it’s the taxes we pay to fund the defence budget, the prices in supermarkets, the cost of energy or our ability to avoid lockdowns in pandemics.