He is standing for election to be the next Prime Minister, but when Jeremy Hunt came to Bristol and tweeted about it later, it wasn’t his credentials for leadership that came under scrutiny.
For the Foreign Secretary and leadership challenger made that age-old error of writing something down about literacy - or illiteracy, in this case - and made not one, but two mistakes.
Mr Hunt’s visit to Avonmouth saw him chat to dockworkers and apprentices at the Bristol Port Company.
He was pictured sharing a buffet lunch with them, wearing a yellow high-vis jacket.
While not many of the lads he chatted to were thought to be Conservative Party members - the only people who can vote in the leadership election between him and Boris Johnson - he made a good show of chatting with the ordinary workers at the docks.
Later, he tweeted the picture, and wrote: “Great to chat with dock workers and apprentices today in Bristol.
“I'm proud of the opportunities our apprenticeship programmes have created.
“But there's more to do, thats why I want to be the first Conservative government to abolish illiteracy. #HastobeHunt”
As any politician writing about literacy standards, Bristol Live journalist or even Bristol Live reader complaining about spelling and punctuation knows only too well, if you’re going to start writing about literacy and spelling, then you had better make sure you don’t make any mistakes.
Unfortunately, Mr Hunt made one or two.
Firstly, he missed out the apostrophe in the word ‘that’s’.
And secondly, he provided something of a telling Freudian slip when he stated a desire to be ‘the first Conservative government’ to abolish illiteracy.
Mr Hunt, of course, is running to be leader of the Conservative Party, and therefore Prime Minister, not to be the entire Government all by himself.
He should, as our sub-editors pointed out, have either pledged to ‘lead the first Conservative government’, or pledged to ‘be the first Conservative Prime Minister’.
Our political editor Kate Wilson met Mr Hunt, and .
