Former cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt has revealed she threatened to pull out of a general election TV debate if she couldn’t apologise for Rishi Sunak skipping a D-Day event.
The then Commons leader – who went on to lose her seat to Labour – told Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast that Number 10 didn’t want her to say the decision was wrong.
She said she told them: “If you don’t want me to say that, go and call someone else into these debates.”
Mr Sunak came under fire weeks into the general election campaign when he left an 80th anniversary event in Normandy early to carry out a TV interview.
Although he apologised, such was the strength of criticism that he was forced to deny rumours he had considered quitting in the wake of the controversy.
Ms Mordaunt took part in a BBC seven-way TV debate the day after the drama unfolded, and said her then-boss’s decision was “completely wrong”.
She told the podcast that she knew it was going to be the first question she’d be asked, and it could distract from attacking Labour’s tax plans if she didn’t answer it head on.
She said: “We wanted to focus on the tax issue and the increased taxes that Labour were going to bring in, and actually anything that I was going to be asked, I had to answer involving those messages. That’s the thing they really wanted to land.
“And so they said, ‘Well, what are you going to say on D-Day?’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m going to say it was absolutely the wrong thing to do and we’re really sorry for it. And you know, what else can you say?’ And they said, ‘Well, can you just, you know, maybe not say that?’
“And I said, ‘If you want me to have any chance of communicating with the public about our concerns about what Labour are going to do on tax, you want me to give them a run around on D-Day?’
“I said, ‘You can’t do that. This is a black-and-white issue. And if you don’t want me to say that, go and call someone else into these debates’.”
Penny Mordaunt
‘People tried to force me to stand against Sunak’
Ms Mordaunt was among a string of Conservative heavyweights who lost their seats in the election – including former prime minister Liz Truss and then-defence secretary Grant Shapps
But her defeat came as a particular blow to Tory moderates who had seen her as a contender to replace Mr Sunak as the party’s leader, given the widespread expectation he would lose the election.
Even before he called the vote, there were rumours of a plot to replace him with Ms Mordaunt.
The former Portsmouth North MP called those briefings “bonkers” and alleged that some MPs had tried to “blackmail” and “threaten” her into standing against the PM.
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Sunak announces election in the pouring rain
She told the podcast “there were a lot of colleagues” who came to see her about ousting Mr Sunak but she told them she didn’t think another leadership contest would help – and the party should focus on delivery.
She added: “There were some other colleagues that came and threatened me to say, ‘If you don’t do this we will destroy you’.”
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Asked if they tried to blackmail her into doing it, she said: “Yeah so they came and they said, ‘You know, you need to do this and you need to have the following people in the following roles’.”
She added: “It was just a kind of ludicrous way of behaving. And I was very angry about that.”
‘Awful’ general election announcement
Former education secretary Gillian Keegan
Ms Mordaunt appeared on the podcast alongside Gillian Keegan, the former education who was a victim of the Lib Dems’ takeover of the so-called “blue wall” in the southwest.
The pair revealed that they did not know Mr Sunak was going to call an early general election until he had already made the decision and informed the King – so it was too late to persuade him otherwise.
Ms Keegan said she thought it was “as bad a time as it could be” to go to the polls, and the delivery of the news – in the pouring rain with a protester playing D:Ream’s Things Can Only Get Better – was awful”.
She said: “I was willing him to just say something. Say, you know, at least I’m not a fair weather politician or, you know, can you change the tune to It’s Raining Men or something? Just say something.
“You can’t pretend it’s not raining, but he did and he delivered and it was awful. I mean, there were puddles on his shoulders. He had a very good suit and his hair didn’t move.“
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