When Jeremy Hunt was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer last autumn, his task was clear: to restore faith in the UK’s public finances after the chaos unleashed by Liz Truss’s economic plans. A year after steadying the ship — and serving a different prime minister — the cautious Tory veteran is under pressure to show he’s still the right man for the job.

With Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives contemplating the threat of a political wipe-out in a general election expected next year, Hunt now faces an altogether different challenge. The Tories trail Labour by 20 points in the polls and — desperate for some momentum — both Conservative backbenchers and Sunak himself want to see bold economic plans to lift their ailing party.