Nadine Dorries won’t replace Boris as PM and announces support for Liz Truss

Nadine Dorries actually sounds like she might join the crowded race to replace Boris Johnson.

The Culture Secretary was probably the Prime Minister’s most loyal supporter in his Cabinet and stuck by him as it collapsed last week.

In an interview with Dan Wootton on GB News, she admitted she had considered making a leadership bid to continue her boss’s ‘legacy’.

She said: ‘To be absolutely clear, I have no personal ambition whatsoever.

‘But for me, the most important thing is that we continue what 14 million people voted for.

‘We continue that manifesto and that legacy. I’m very keen that people don’t trash the legacy of the last three years.’

Ms Dorries also hit out at Rishi Sunak, saying he had planned his leadership bid ‘to the letter’ and ‘launched it the day it was ready’.

‘Everybody else was kind of like blindsided and thinking, “What’s going on?”

‘We’ve all been working so hard, how can he have been that campaign ready?

‘Well, the answer is he wasn’t working so hard.’

Candidates require the support of 20 MPs to make the leadership contest, with nominations closing later today.

Mr Sunak, the frontrunner and bookies’ favourite, already has the declared backers to make the threshold, along with Penny Mordaunt and Tom Tugendhat.

Several other candidates – including Liz Truss, Nadhim Zahawi, Jeremy Hunt and Kemi Badenoch – are close enough to suggest they will be in the race.

Insiders from Sajid Javid’s campaign were also confident of making the cut, as were allies of Suella Braverman.

Grant Shapps faces an uphill battle to make the cut, while the 100/1 outsider Rehman Chishti has no chance.

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