The Tory leadership contest looks set to end next week without a single ‘yellow card’ being awarded. But the two remaining candidates seem to be making a late bid for a reprimand from Bob Blackman. Both Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch have this morning traded verbal blows with each other, four days before polls close on Thursday. Talk about a Halloween massacre…
In an interview with today’s Sunday Telegraph, Kemi Badenoch was quoted as saying that ‘Integrity matters… with me you’d have a leader where there’s no scandal. I was never sacked for anything, I didn’t have to resign in disgrace or, you know, because there was a whiff of impropriety.’ The paper claimed that these remarks was ‘an apparent reference to Mr Jenrick’s involvement in a planning dispute when he was housing secretary.’
The ex-immigration minister duly appeared on GB News to give his reply. In an interview this morning, Jenrick noted that the original planning dispute had since been approved by Tower Hamlets council and told host Camilla Tominey:
I am proud of the way this long contest has been conducted. Priti, Mel, Tom Tugendhat, James Cleverly, we have worked together as a team. We’ve debated ideas and policies. It is a great shame that Kemi has chosen at this last minute to sully that to trade personal attacks. If Kemi does this to Conservative colleagues, this will be the death of the Conservative party. I want to end the drama. I want to end these petty disputes, the misinformation. The public are sick to death of this kind of garbage. It needs to end now. With respect, these comments are just pure garbage. This is misinformation. These are petty personal attacks… You cannot claim to be a unity candidate and go making ad hominem attacks on Conservative colleagues. If this is the manner in which Kemi would conduct herself as leader of the party, the party has no future.
Ouch. Over to you Kemi, who later told the same broadcaster that:
All of these attacks have been thrown at me throughout the campaign and I said nothing. But when I’m asked a question and I answer it honestly which I will always do, I tell the truth. Suddenly it’s open season. I’m not really interested in talking about Rob. If I’m asked questions, I will give an answer as honestly and politely as I possibly can, but I haven’t said anything that is not public knowledge.
Four days left to go. For party managers, it can’t come soon enough…
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