Tom Tugendhat insists he takes Tory leadership offer seriously and denies trying to raise his profile

Tom Tugendhat has maintained that he is in the… Tory leadership race to win it and not only compete for a cabinet job.

Appear on the BBCOn the Sunday Morning show, Mr Tugendhat, who has never held a ministerial position before, was asked if he was just trying to improve his profile by refusing to drop out.

He replied, ‘No, I am not. What I’m in this race for is making sure we get a clean start in the UK.”

Tom Tugendhat has insisted he is in the Tory leadership race to win it and not just competing for a cabinet job

He said that if elected, he would build the entire HS2 high-speed line, including the northern sections as far as Scotland.

He also said that Boris Johnson’s account of the Partygate scandal was “rather more fictional than reality.”

The MP is unlikely to reach the final two candidates in the contest.

It came after he was cheered on Friday night by a Channel 4 audience when he answered the question of whether Mr Johnson was an “honest man” by saying “no”.

A quick poll by Opinium saw his performance propel him to the top of the board among the crowd.