Hopeful Tory leaders speak about defending Johnson from scandal | BreakingNews.ie, #Tory #leadership #hopefuls #speak #defending #Johnson #scandal #BreakingNews.ie Welcome to OLASMEDIA TV NEWSThis is what we have for you today:
Tory leadership candidates have spoken out about their experiences defending Boris Johnson – and the downfall of the British Prime Minister – now that they are free from collective responsibility.
British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said he believes he played a part in convincing Johnson to resign, claiming that one of the price minister’s shortcomings was that he was “almost too loyal to people”.
Former UK Health Secretary Sajid Javid, meanwhile, denied claims that he and former UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak had coordinated their resignation letters.
Asked about the lead-up to Mr Johnson’s resignation by Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday program, Mr Shapps said he wanted to make sure Mr Johnson “understood the facts” as “business was drawing to a close” with his premiership.
“I saw that things were coming to an end. I didn’t want him… to be one of the problems of being a leader, eventually you get people around you who just tell you what you want to hear,” he said.
When asked if he thought his intervention was “part of the reason” for Mr Johnson’s departure, he replied: “Yeah, I mean, it reflects the reality. So yes, of course.”
When asked if the outgoing Pricing Minister is a man of integrity, Shapps told Sky: “I think one of his shortcomings was that he was almost too loyal to people.”
Asked if this was also former Tory whip Chris Pincher, he said: “Pincher, people would have said (Dominic) Cummings, and other people.
“But in the end he was also very brave. He would make decisions that I think other politicians might have said ‘is that brave or is that reckless?’ and the quality of decisions is really in the spotlight.”
Mr Shapps said he chose not to quit his government job out of a sense of “responsibility”.
He also stressed that he had defended the scandals that came out of No 10 in broadcast interviews out of duty to the cabinet’s collective responsibility, adding: “I would expect the same from everyone in a future Shapps government.”
Meanwhile, Mr Javid told broadcasters that he and Mr Sunak did not agree to send their ministerial resignation letters at the same time.
When Mr. Javid tweeted his letter of resignation on Tuesday evening, Mr. Sunak followed close behind a few minutes later.
Former British health secretary Sajid Javid arrives at BBC Broadcasting House in London, to appear on Sunday morning (Stefan Rousseau/PA)
Asked by BBC’s Sunday Morning whether the two resignations had been coordinated, Mr Javid said: “Not at all. I had no idea what he was going to do. I can understand what he did because I read his letter afterwards, but not at all.
“This was a decision of mine, nobody had – even the closest advisers in my department – nobody had any idea that I was going to do this and it wasn’t about leadership or anything else.”
When asked why he didn’t resign when he read the Sue Gray Partygate report, he said, “During that period, I gave the benefit of the doubt.”
He said he thought this was “the right thing to do”.
When asked whether he always spoke the truth when representing the government on broadcasts, and whether he believed what Mr Johnson had told him, Mr Javid said: “I trusted what I was told.
“It turns out that some of the things I was told – and I said that very clearly in Parliament when I made my statement – turned out not to be true.
“Now, I don’t know why anyone would have said something to me that wasn’t true. That’s a question for them. But I trusted what I was told.”
Collective responsibility is a constitutional convention that requires all UK ministers to publicly support government decisions, even if they disagree privately.
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