Election results are coming in thick and fast – and the bad news is piling up for Rishi Sunak. Labour beat the Tories in the Blackpool by-election and Sunak’s party lost 130 seats in councils around England. Although Sunak allies like transport secretary Mark Harper insist that it’s too early to make judgement calls, the picture is undeniably bleak. Inevitably, some Tories are turning on the Prime Minister.
A rather frustrated Tim Montgomerie, veteran Tory commentator and founder of ConservativeHome, told the BBC this morning the ‘results are so bad’ that Sunak ‘should go’. He then took to Twitter to vent that ‘things are getting worse rather than better under Sunak. The Tories continue on the same path at their peril.’ Strong stuff…
He’s not the only one with reservations. Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns also made some rather telling remarks on the BBC’s Today programme this morning. Last year, Jenkyns submitted a no confidence letter in Sunak — tweeting that ‘enough is enough’. Do the council election losses vindicate her decision? Blasting the Blackpool by-election outcome as ‘disastrous’ and the results in general as ‘catastrophic’, Dame Jenkyns told the BBC:
The last 24 hours, I think Rishi has got a message, he’s being told by the electorate, wake up, be conservative or we lose… We need to be decidedly more conservative, quite radical Cabinet reshuffle now to include all sides of the party including the centre-right. The One Nations won’t like this but I’m sorry, hard luck. We’ve got to be focused now on being true conservative to get anyway near less catastrophic results.
Ouch.
On the subject of the leadership, the parliamentarian sounded a little more resigned, telling Amol Rajan that: ‘I’m not sure colleagues are going to be putting the letters in, so we’re working with what we’ve got.’ Not quite the, er, glowing endorsement the Prime Minister might have hoped for.
Jenkyns then turned to the subject of Sunak’s predecessor — and his years of electoral success:
I think we shouldn’t have got rid of Boris in the first place but we are where we are and it’s looking unlikely that the MPs are going to put the letters in, so we’ve got to pull together. I mean I think we need to find a role for Boris as well to ensure we show that we are a united front, we can heal wounds but ultimately have common sense policies. People are sick of this wokeist agenda from the left which has impacted on every institution. They want a government to stand up, be proud to be British and to be a voice for them.
She then went on to tell the Telegraph that Johnson should even be made party chairman, not too long after sharing an interview slot with the incumbent Tory chair. Could these sentiments spur on Tory plotters to oust the incumbent PM before the next election? Watch this space…
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