Her father, Major Arthur John Hunter,, was a rubber plantation manager, awarded MBE for his service with the Special Operations Executive in Burma during the Second World War.

She had perhaps the most naturally intuitive political instinct of anyone I ever met, was very, very clever, and could be ruthless beyond any of us, if she felt it necessary to protect me or the project.

"[4] In 2001 Hunter left Downing Street to become Director of Communications at the oil and gas company BP in 2002.

[7] She is the founding Director and now a Trustee of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering and serves on the Board of the Birmingham Business School.

In July of 2002 it was reported that Hunter was in a relationship with the political editor of Sky News Adam Boulton.