Conservative leadership candidate Jeremy Hunt said his colleague Esther McVey would be deputy prime minister if he became prime minister.
Hunt compared Tatton’s MP to John Prescott as Tony Blair’s MP when he made the announcement on the BBC’s Sunday Morning.
He said: “I also recognize that the leader of a political party must win the election, and that means a broad appeal, just as Tony Blair made John Prescott expand his appeal as Deputy Prime Minister, I will have Esther McVey as my deputy prime minister.
“She has won many elections against Labor in the north, I have won them against the Liberal Democrats in the south and I think we will be a formidable campaign team.”