Jeremy Hunt is currently travelling the country making his bid to Conservative Party members as to why he should be chosen to replace current Prime Minister Theresa May. The Tory leadership race started with eleven contenders and now is pitting Uxbridge MP Boris Johnson against the current Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt. The 52-year-old claimed his success is dow to his “secret weapon” wife who he has described as the “perfect partner”. But who exactly is Lucia Hunt?

Foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, 52, was elected as an MP for South West Surrey in 2005.

Mr Hunt worked under the administrations of David Cameron and Theresa May, occupying positions in the culture, health and foreign offices.

However, as Mr Hunt has pitched himself as the perfect replacement for Mrs May, many members of the public have been captivated by the politician’s wife, who has been at the centre of his campaign.

Since Mr Hunt first launched his campaign, his wife Lucia has been sat at the front and centre of it all.

As soon as Mr Hunt entered the room for his campaign launch speech, he excused himself and in fact, went right over to his wife to greet her before he gave his presentation.

Mrs Hunt was seen embracing her husband’s key supporters including Amber Rudd before taking her position in the front row.

She even shocked crowds, and earned sympathy, when Foreign Office minister Mark Field, greeted her with an enthusiastic kiss her on the lips.

But who is Lucia Hunt and where is she from?

Lucia Gao, 41, is from Xi’an in China, an ancient city in China where her parents still live.

She is now a British citizen having moved to England to pursue her career.

The mother-of-three first met Mr Hunt in 2008, through his education business Hotcourses, a business which was later sold for £14 million.

This personal fortune has caused backlash for Mr Hunt, who is dubbed the richest of Mrs May’s cabinet members.

In April last year the married couple faced scrutiny again when Lucia and Jeremy Hunt set up a company to buy seven luxury flats without registering the firm with Companies House within the allotted time.

The former Health Secretary was accused of ‘illegal activity’ by Labour for failing to disclose his stake in the firm to the authorities.

In 2008, when the couple met, the then-Miss Gao was at that time working at Warwick University recruiting Chinese students for the university.

She married Mr Hunt in July 2009 in Xian in China, in a traditional Chinese ceremony.

The politician had previously asked Lucia’s father for permission to wed his daughter.

The couple have a son and two daughters together, aged nine, seven and four, and Lucia is now believed to be a full-time politician’s wife and homemaker.

In May, Mr Hunt described his wife as his “secret weapon” and said she was the “perfect Foreign Secretary’s wife” after she accompanied him on a seven-day, five country tour of Africa.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph last month, the Foreign Secretary described his wife as the “perfect partner” and said her “toughness” was good to have by his side in a negotiation.

However, he got into hot water over where his wife is from when, in 2018, he made a blunder claiming his wife was in fact from Japan, while on a trade trip to China.

The Conservative MP has previously expressed his concerns about his ‘half-Chinese’ children facing hostility during a call-in radio show in 2014.

The former Health Secretary said he was worried about the mounting anger against migrants and whether this would mean his wife and their children would face malice for using the resources such as the NHS.

He told the radio show: “I’d like to make one general point about immigration. My wife is Chinese and she obviously lives with me in London.

“My children are half Chinese and I do not want them to grow up in a country where people look at immigrants and say it’s difficult for me to access NHS services because of people like you.”

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