Ministers have called on Liz Truss to “disown” attacks on Rishi Sunak by Nadine Dorries.
The culture secretary, a supporter of Truss’s leadership bid, mounted a fresh attack as she made a half-hearted apology for previous comments about his expensive clothes.
She also shared a doctored image on Twitter showing Rishi Sunak stabbing Boris Johnson in the back.
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, she described Sunak as an “assassin” for helping to bring down Boris Johnson, and a “dog in the manger” for not supporting the prime minister enough when he was chancellor.
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She said she “may have gone over the top” when she criticised Sunak for wearing £450 Prada shoes and a £3,500 bespoke suit.
“I wanted to highlight Rishi’s misguided sartorial style in order to alert Tory members not to be taken in by appearances in the way that happened to many of us who served with the chancellor in cabinet,” she said.
“The assassin’s gleaming smile, his gentle voice and even his diminutive stature had many of us well and truly fooled.”
She later retweeted an image showing Sunak as Brutus stabbing Johnson as Julius Caesar in the back.
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Business minister Greg Hands condemned Dorries’ actions as “distasteful” and “dangerous” in the wake of the killing of Southend West Tory MP Sir David Amess at a constituency surgery in Essex last October.
The MP, who is supporting Sunak’s campaign, told Sky News: “I’m sure Liz Truss would disown this kind of behaviour.
“I think this is appalling.
“Look, it’s not even a year since the stabbing of Sir David Amess at his Southend constituency surgery, so I think this is very, very bad taste, dangerous even”.
Welsh secretary Sir Robert Buckland, another Sunak supporter, also denounced Dorries’ behaviour.
“I think that sort of imagery and narrative is not just incendiary, it’s wrong,” he told BBC Radio Wales.
“I think it’s time for those who think that an argument about Prada shoes or earrings is more important, for instance, should wind their neck in and let people talk about the issues rather than the personality”.
He added: “Nadine is well known as having strong views on things. Nadine speaks for herself, she’s very much an individual on that. But that is not a position that Liz would take”.
Liz Truss’s campaign have been contacted for comment.
Boris Johnson and his wife Carrie have celebrated the first anniversary of their wedding with a lavish party in the grounds of a multi-millionaire Tory donor.
A giant white marquee was erected at 18th-century Daylesford House in the Cotswolds, which is owned by Lord Bamford, to host the celebrations.
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The outgoing prime minister’s supporters, including Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg, were rewarded for their loyalty with invitations to the big-money bash.
Johnson’s 81-year-old father Stanley and his sister Rachel were also in attendance, as was Australian actor Holly Valance.
Other political allies joining the festivities included Tory peer Lord Goldsmith and former cabinet minister John Whittingdale.
Liz Truss, who is favourite to succeed Johnson as PM, was unable to attend due to the Tory leadership campaign.
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Speaking in Bromley, Kent, she defended his decision to hold the party at a time when so many people in the country are struggling with the cost of living crisis.
She said: “I think he’s entitled to enjoy his wedding day, and I wish the best to him and Carrie and all the family.”
Stanley Johnson arrives at Daylesford House.
Beresford Hodge – PA Images via Getty Images
Guests were able to relax on hay bales and benches placed outside the marquee and eat and drink at casks and small tables as they enjoyed views across vast meadows and orchards.
The Johnsons had originally been planning to throw their wedding party at the Prime Minister’s official country residence, Chequers, in Buckinghamshire.
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But that plan was ditched following a huge political backlash.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and wife Carrie arriving for the official welcome ceremony during the G7 summit in Schloss Elmau, in the Bavarian Alps, Germany. Picture date: Sunday June 26, 2022.
Stefan Rousseau via PA Wire/PA Images
The couple married in a low-key private ceremony at Westminster Cathedral last year, organised in secret, in front of a small group of family and friends.
This was followed by a reception in the gardens of 10 Downing Street with a limited number of guests due to coronavirus restrictions.
It is understood that billionaire Lord Bamford, chairman of construction equipment manufacturer JCB, is covering at least some of the cost of the party.
It is not the first time Johnson has benefited from his generosity.
The Tory peer supported his 2019 leadership bid, with the PM knocking down a wall with a JCB digger at the firm’s Staffordshire factory in a stunt to demonstrate he could “get Brexit done”.
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Lord Bamford’s wife, Lady Carole Bamford, set up the upmarket Daylesford Organic Farm, with a chain of shops selling its produce across London.
Johnson reportedly received food from the Daylesford farm shop worth an estimated £12,500 during the pandemic, though Downing Street said he paid for the cost of all food for “personal consumption”.
When asked about the wedding celebrations, No 10 declined to comment on the “private matter”.
A Scottish union leader has quit the Labour party in protest at the sacking of shadow minister Sam Tarry.
Kevin Lindsay, an organiser for the Aslef train drivers’ union in Scotland, said Tarry’s sacking was “a step too far” and a sign the party is “moving to the right and is becoming unrecognisable”.
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Tarry, a shadow minister in the transport team, was sacked on Wednesday evening for a joining striking rail workers on the picket line.
The Labour Party said it had no choice but to sack Tarry because he had also done a round of broadcast interviews without permission of party HQ and had also “made up policy on the hoof”.
In response, Tarry told LBC Radio his sacking was a “catastrophic mistake” and warned that other colleagues could quit in protest.
“I think it’s wrong to state that any Labour politician — whether it be a councillor, whether it be an MP, whether it be a shadow minister — shouldn’t be showing solidarity,” he said.
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“If it isn’t tackled properly, there’s going to be a real danger that it won’t just be me that’s sacked, I think you’ll see dozens and dozens of shadow ministers sacked across the whole country.” Speaking to Times Radio, he called Starmer’s decision to ban his team from joining the picket line a “catastrophic mistake.”
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, described the sacking as “another insult to the trade union movement” while Mick Lynch, the head of the RMT union, accused Starmer of “playing up to the agenda of Liz Truss and the right wing press”.
In a letter to the party confirming his resignation, Lindsay wrote: “The Labour Party was and is meant to be the political wing of the trade union movement but now it’s more interested in trying woo Tory voters in the shires of England than representing working people.
“As a democrat, I respect that Keir Starmer has been elected the leader but I truly believe his performance and policies are making it impossible for the Labour Party to return to power and that he should be removed from his position immediately.
“There needs to be a change in leadership and political direction but I sadly can’t see this happening and we will end up with PM Truss for several years.
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“Therefore I have made the decision not only to resign from the Labour Party but now also support the proposal for Aslef to disaffiliate from the party.”
Grant Shapps has insisted he will never sit down with the RMT to end the rail strikes.
The transport secretary said it was a “red herring” to suggest he should get involved in the negotiations.
Around 40,000 RMT members have staged another walkout today in a dispute over proposed changes to working conditions, job cuts and pay.
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The union and Labour have called on ministers to get round the table to thrash out a deal to end the industrial action bringing misery to millions of commuters.
But speaking to Sky News, Shapps said: “They don’t need to speak to ministers because their employers are the people who have the mandate to negotiate this, they are the people who they can resolve this with, so this is just them trying to distract attention.”
He added: “It’s not a question of washing my hands, it’s just that I’m not the right person to be in the room negotiating.
“I’m not the right person to discuss, for example, the maintenance schedules of individual groups of workers in situations where they have to send out an entire roster to do a job that may just require one or two people.
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“There simply is no reason for the unions to be speaking to anybody other than the employers.”
Asked if he would get involved at any stage, Shapps said: “It’s a no. This is a game by the unions – it’s a complete red herring as well and it’s simply not how strikes are resolved. It can only ever be the employer – in this case Network Rail and the train operating companies – and the union.”
Shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh said: “Grant Shapps has the power to settle this dispute, so it is utterly shameful he is refusing to do his job and enter talks to end this disruption.
“The Transport secretary has spent more time on his own doomed leadership bid, than he has resolving these strikes.
“This hapless Conservative government is so mired in scandal and chaos, they refuse to do the job they’re paid for and sort this dispute out.”
Labour today said the bitter Tory leadership race was providing them with a “wealth of material” ahead of the next election.
Shabana Mahmood, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, said they would “fulsomely” take advantage of the Tories “trashing their own record”.
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She described both Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss as “continuity Johnson” and said she was “happy” to face either at the next general election.
The MP for Birmingham Ladywood said she will be able to tell voters on the doorstep to just listen to the Tories criticising their own record.
In an exclusive interview with HuffPost UK, Mahmood said: “They are giving us a wealth of material, we are obviously using some now and we’ll have plans for more later as the contest progresses and as we gear up for the next general election – whenever that might be.
“We would prefer an earlier election because Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are proving every day that they are just more of the same.
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“Neither has the answers that the country needs to move forward post-pandemic, neither has the answers on the economy.
“They are just brutally exposing – not just each other – but 12 years of Tory government that has led us to this moment.
“As far as we’re concerned bring on an early general election. As soon as this contest is done they should seek a fresh mandate.”
The vicious battle for No.10 has even prompted Tory grandees to warn the Conservatives they risk being called the “nasty party” again and losing the next election.
“I’ll be able to say to people on the doorstep ‘you don’t have to take my word for it anymore folks just listen to them’. The trashing of their own record, I think that you’d expect us to take advantage of that which we will be doing so fulsomely.”
– Shabana Mahmood
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Earlier in the contest Truss and Sunak pulled out of a Sky News debate amid concerns about the damage they were doing to the party’s reputation, forcing the other candidates to follow suit.
But, despite warnings, the unedifying public slanging match has continued between the final candidates and their campaign teams.
Asked if she thought Tory infighting would help Labour win the next election, Mahmood said: “We’re going to be ready for that election whenever it comes.”
However, she said it was on the Labour Party to persuade the public to switch their votes and that they had to show the public they had “changed” and had the answers on the economy and cost of living crisis.
“The Tories are doing an even better job of trashing their own record than we could do or get a hearing on,” she added.
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“They’re taking primetime broadcast slots to tear lumps out of each other.”
Labour Party deputy leader Angela Rayner, leader Keir Starmer and national campaign coordinator Shabana Mahmood.
JUSTIN TALLIS via Getty Images
Mahmood said the “vicious infighting” brought back memories of some of Labour’s rowing in recent years.
But she added: “The public never appreciates it and they never reward it at the polls either.
“The Labour Party learnt that lesson in the hardest of ways in 2019, we don’t propose to go there again.”
Mahmood said just pointing to the Tories would not be enough and they did not take the electorate for fools: “We know we’ve got to win their trust back.”
She said Labour was earning the right to be heard again, adding: “It’s on us to seal the deal with the electorate.”
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All your bills going up and up and up.
Taxes rising to the highest level in 70 years.
The worst economic crisis for a generation.
Not our words.
The words of those running to be the next Tory leader.
Lord Fowler, who served under Margaret Thatcher and is now a crossbench peer, described Monday night’s BBC debate as “a bad night for the Conservatives”.
He told Times Radio the only people who might have been happy with the outcome would have been the Labour Party, adding: “They’ve got enough clips from that programme to last them through to the next election.”
Yesterday culture secretary Nadine Dorries, who is backing Truss, criticised Sunak for wearing a £3,500 suit and £450 Prada shoes.
Dorries said Truss “will be travelling the country wearing her earrings which cost circa £4.50 from Claire’s Accessories”.
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The comments prompted veterans minister Johnny Mercer to warn that the party was putting success at the next election in jeopardy.
“The puerile nature of this leadership contest is embarrassing,” he said. “Time to raise the standards.”
The Labour party is already weaponising quotes, viral clips and images from the Tory leadership debates on their social media accounts.
They include a “Tory leadership bingo” card that cites “shaking the magic money tree” and “Thatcherite cosplay”.
They also created an advert in which they spliced together clips of Tory leadership candidates tearing strips off of each other over their record in government.
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“All your bills, every week, every month, they’re going up and up and up,” Sunak says in one part of the video.
“Under your plans, we are predicted to have a recession,” Truss tells Sunak in another clip.
Labour leader Keir Starmer even quoted leadership candidates at Boris Johnson during their final prime minister’s questions.
He said: “She [Liz Truss] also said the former chancellor’s 15 tax rises are leading the country into recession and [Penny Mordaunt] was even more scathing.
“She said ‘our public services are in a desperate state, we can’t continue with what we’ve been doing because it clearly isn’t working’.
“Has the prime minister told her who’s been running our public services for the last 12 years?”
Sunak claimed there is “nothing Conservative” about Truss’s approach to cutting taxes and pumping up borrowing, arguing it would give the party “absolutely no chance” of winning the next election.
Foreign secretary Truss, in turn, suggested her rival would lead the country into a recession and criticised him for increasing taxes to the “highest rate in 70 years”.
During the debate a spokesman for Truss told The Times that Sunak was not fit for office, adding: “His aggressive mansplaining and shouty private school behaviour is desperate, unbecoming and is a gift to Labour.”
Boris Johnson has defended meeting a former KGB agent at an Italian villa without any government officials present.
The prime minister said no official business was discussed “as far as I am aware” when he met Alexander Lebedev in 2018, when he was foreign secretary.
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Johnson admitted the meeting took place while appearing in front of the liaison committee earlier this month.
In a letter to Sir Bernard Jenkin, the committee’s chairman, giving more details on the visit, he said he had been attending a “social event” organised by Evgeny Lebedev at his home in Italy.
At the time, the Lebedevs owned the Evening Standard and the Independent newspapers.
The PM said: “At this social event, I also met Evgeny Lebedev’s father. This was not a formal meeting, nor something that was pre-arranged.”
He said his officials were “aware in advance” about the event and it was not unusual for them not to accompany him.
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He said: “Contrary to some reports, my visit was in line with established security protocols under successive foreign secretaries.
“It would not have been normal practice for civil servants or security staff to have accompanied me to such a private, social occasion. I did not take ministerial papers with me.”
Johnson said if ministers discuss official business with an external organisation or individual without any officials present, they would be expected to inform them afterwards.
“This was not necessary in this case,” he said. “As far as I am aware, no government business was discussed.”
Asked about the allegations in March, he said: “That is simply incorrect. But what I can tell you is, it suits Putin’s agenda to try to characterise this as a struggle between the West and Russia.
“It suits his agenda to say that the UK, that we in Nato countries, are anti-Russia, European countries are now anti-Russian.
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “Keeping the British people safe should be a priority of government, but this web of murky relationships shows the Conservatives cannot be trusted with our national security.”
Keir Starmer has said he is “pragmatic” about the question of public ownership of rail, energy and water companies, amid confusion over Labour’s stance.
The Labour leader used a speech in Liverpool on Monday to say the priority for the next Labour government would be to “reboot” the economy with a focus on “growth, growth, growth”.
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He was challenged about his view on nationalising utilities after shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves earlier said mass nationalisation was not compatible with the party’s new “fiscal rules” to control public spending.
“I take a pragmatic approach rather than an ideological one, I agree with what Rachel Reeves said this morning,” Starmer said.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4′s Today programme on Monday, Reeves was asked if the party had abandoned previous plans to nationalise water, energy and train companies if it wins power.
“They were a commitment in a manifesto that secured our worst results since 1935,” she said.
“To be spending billions of pounds on nationalising things, that just doesn’t stack up against our fiscal rules.”
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Reeves added: “We have scrapped the 2019 manifesto. That is not the starting point.”
But a Labour spokesperson later said Reeves’ comments had been misinterpreted.
“We are pragmatic about public ownership as long as it sits within our fiscal rules – a point Rachel was underlining in the interview by referencing this framework,” they said.
“For example, we know there is a positive role for rail in public ownership.”
Labour’s shadow transport secretary Louise Haigh tweeted: “Labour is committed to public ownership of rail and putting the public back in control of our bus network to drive down prices, improve services and meet net zero.”
And shadow transport minister Sam Tarry added: “Just to be absolutely 100% crystal clear – this is the Labour Party position on the public ownership of rail.”
Jeremy Corbyn’s 2019 general election manifesto promised to “bring rail, mail, water and energy” and “the broadband-relevant parts of BT” into public ownership.
Starmer has faced accusations from his opponents on the left of the party that he campaigned for the leadership by promising to introduce leftwing policies before shifting to the right after he won.
Labour would not pursue mass nationalisation of industries if it wins the next election, Rachel Reeves has said, although the party later clarified there was a “positive role for rail in public ownership”.
Jeremy Corbyn’s 2019 general election manifesto promised to “bring rail, mail, water and energy” and “the broadband-relevant parts of BT” into public ownership.
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But speaking to BBC Radio 4′s Today programme on Monday, Reeves suggested the party had now ditched those ideas.
“They were a commitment in a manifesto that secured our worst results since 1935,” the shadow chancellor said.
“I’ve set out fiscal rules that say all day-to-day spending will be funded by day-to-day tax revenues.
“Within our fiscal rules, to be spending billions of pounds on nationalising things, that just doesn’t stack up against our fiscal rules.”
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She added: “So we have scrapped the 2019 manifesto. That is not the starting point.”
Reeves said the party would be going into the next election with new ideas “not the policies of 2019”.
A Labour spokesperson later added: “We are pragmatic about public ownership as long as it sits within our fiscal rules – a point Rachel was underlining in the interview by referencing this framework.
“For example, we know there is a positive role for rail in public ownership.”
Starmer has faced accusations from his opponents on the left of the party that he campaigned for the leadership by promising to introduce leftwing policies before shifting to the right after he won.
Two Russian cruise missiles hit the port’s infrastructure on Saturday, while Ukraine’s air defences brought down two others missiles.
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Odessa’s regional governor, Maksym Marchenko, said an unspecified number of people were injured in the attack.
Russia has admitted responsibility for the strike, saying the missiles “destroyed a military infrastructure target” at the port.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky condemned Moscow’s actions and said “the invaders can no longer deceive anyone”.
And Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko said: “It took less than 24 hours for Russia to launch a missile attack on Odesa’s port, breaking its promises and undermining its commitments before the UN and Turkey under the Istanbul agreement.
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“In case of non-fulfilment, Russia will bear full responsibility for a global food crisis.”
The attack was also condemned in the UK, with foreign secretary Liz Truss branding it “absolutely appalling”.
“It is absolutely appalling that only a day after striking this deal, Vladimir Putin has launched a completely unwarranted attack on Odessa,” she said.
“It shows that not a word he says can be trusted.”
The strike came just hours after Moscow and Kyiv signed a deal to allow grain exports to continue through the Black Sea in a move the UN described as a “beacon of hope” for ending the global food crisis.
The war in Ukraine — which supplies much of the world with products such as wheat and corn — has halted Ukrainian sea shipments and caused grain prices to rise dramatically.
Under the deal signed on Friday, a path opened for significant volumes of commercial food to leave the ports of Odessa, Chernomorsk and Yuzhny.
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A key element of the deal was the agreement by both Russia and Ukraine that there would be no attacks on any of the vessels.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the attack cast serious doubt on Russia’s commitment to the deal and warned of a deepening of the global food crisis.
“Russia must stop its aggression and fully implement the grain deal to which it has agreed,” he said.
The US ambassador to Ukraine, Bridget Brink, also denounced the strike “outrageous” and accused the the Kremlin of “weaponising” food.
Liz Truss has vowed to deport more migrants if she is elected prime minister.
The foreign secretary said she would strike more Rwanda-style deportation deals in a bid to halt small boats bringing illegal immigrants from France.
Truss, who is battling it out against Rishi Sunak for Boris Johnson’s job, also vowed to bolster Border Force staff by 20 per cent in a bid to deter people from crossing the Channel.
Truss said: “We need to break the cycle of these appalling gangs and stop people taking dangerous journeys across the channel.
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“As prime minister, I am determined to see the Rwanda policy through to full implementation as well as exploring other countries where we can work on similar partnerships.
“I’ll make sure we have the right levels of force and protection at our borders. I will not cower to the ECHR [European Convention on Human Rights] and its continued efforts to try and control immigration policy.”
Sunak said he will do “whatever it takes” to make the Rwanda scheme work, arguing that the UK’s current immigration system is “broken” and “chaotic”.
Also included in Truss’s policy pitch are plans to double Border Force Maritime staffing levels so that more Channel patrols can take place, as well as appointing a new Home Office minister to oversee the Border Force.
A source close to Truss said: “As foreign secretary, Liz worked closely with Priti Patel to formulate the generation-defining Rwanda policy.
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“As prime minister she will do whatever it takes to protect our borders. She’s been frustrated with the ECHR and its mission creep. She is prepared to take a tougher stance and deliver the reforms required so the ECHR works for Britain.”
Sunak sought to match Truss on immigration with a 10-point plan that includes a commitment to a more narrow definition of who qualifies for asylum compared with that offered by the ECHR.
The plan will also give the government enhanced powers to detail, tag and monitor illegal migrants.
Sunak said: “Our immigration system is broken and we have to be honest about that. Whether you believe that migration should be high or low, we can all agree that it should be legal and controlled.
“Right now the system is chaotic, with law-abiding citizens seeing boats full of illegal immigrants coming from the safe country of France with our sailors and coastguards seemingly powerless to stop them.
“It must stop, and if I am prime minister I will stop it.”
Sunak said he would immediately work with French president Emmanuel Macron to find a solution to small boat crossings, including through a new cross-government taskforce.
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Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Sunak said: “The ECHR cannot inhibit our ability to properly control our borders and we shouldn’t let it. We need to inject a healthy dose of common sense into the system, and that is what my plan does.”
Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper criticised the pair’s plans and said it risked wasting £120m of taxpayer money if it is ruled unlawful by courts.
The first deportation flight was grounded in June after a series of legal challenges were lodged, with more expected to be filed in due course.
Cooper said: “The Conservatives have been in power for 12 years. It beggars belief that they claim to be the ones to sort things out when they have both failed for so long.”
The shift on to immigration comes after Sunak and Truss repeatedly clashed over economic policy.
Truss has vowed to cut taxes “from day one” if she replaces Johnson and has said she would immediately scrap Sunak’s increase in national insurance, which she argued was strangling growth and hitting families already hard-pressed by the cost of living crisis.
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Sunak retaliated by branding her tax-cutting plans as “immoral” and a “fairytale”. He said he will only cut tax when inflation — currently running at 9.4 per cent — was under control.
Over the next six weeks, Truss and Sunak will take part in a number of hustings across the country in a bid to woo Tory party members.
Polling from YouGov last week gave Truss a 24-point lead over Sunak among Tory party members.
However, new polling from Opinium put Sunak slightly ahead of his rival among all voters on the question of who would make the better prime minister.
Forty-three per cent of the 2,000 adults surveyed said Sunak would make a good prime minister, compared with 36 per cent for Truss.
The two will go head-to-head in a televised BBC debate on Monday, with The Sun and Talk TV staging another on Tuesday.
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Sky News will then host another debate on August 4.
