Sunak comes out fighting over Boris honours row

Rishi Sunak has just delivered a direct rebuke of Boris Johnson over the resignation honours row. Sunak used an interview at London Tech Week to hit back at Johnson, following the omission of Nadine Dorries from Johnson’s honours list. That decision kickstarted a chain of events that led to Dorries, Johnson and Nigel Adams quitting over the weekend and sparking three by-elections. The PM was asked whether his predecessor – who criticised Sunak’s government in his resignation statement – had undermined him. He replied:

‘Boris Johnson asked me to do something that I wasn’t prepared to do because I didn’t think it was right. That was to either overrule Holac (the House of Lords appointments committee) or make promises to people. If people don’t like that then tough. When I got this job, I said I was going to do things differently because I wanted to change politics and that’s what I’m doing.’