WATCH Top Tory donor: 'Bully' Boris Johnson would be cleaning vans if he worked for my plumbing firm
3 min read
A major Conservative donor has branded Boris Johnson a “bully” and said he would force the Foreign Secretary to clean vans at his plumbing firm.
Pimlico Plumbers boss Charlie Mullins said Theresa May was being “intimidated” and “belittled” by her Cabinet underling and she should dump him to teach him a lesson.
It comes after the Prime Minister hinted that Mr Johnson could be demoted in a reshuffle as she bids to reassert her ailing authority over her party and the country.
Mr Johnson repeatedly challenged Mrs May on Brexit in the run-up to the disastrous Conservative party conference last week, before making a major diplomatic gaffe at the annual get-together.
Mr Mullins - who has given tens of thousands to the Tory party - lashed out at Mr Johnson for “belittling the Prime Minister”.
“He’s intimidating her, he’s bullying her and why should a bully be allowed to win?” he told Sky News.
“The point is everyone is missing here is the man who is causing all the problems is Boris.
“He needs to be taken down a peg or two. If he was working in my company he would be cleaning vans at the moment.”
Mr Mullins later took to Twitter to congratulate himself on the remark, calling it "genius".
Just days ago Mr Mullins accepted Mrs May would have to stand down because her tenure was “getting embarrassing”.
“If this was a boxing match, the fight would have been stopped,” he told the Guardian.
Today he insisted Mrs May would have to stand down but said it would have to be an orderly process and not happen immediately.
In her first interview since her own nightmare conference speech which led to a plot to oust her being revealed, Mrs May suggested her Tory colleague could be removed from his job.
“It has never been my style to hide from a challenge and I’m not going to start now,” she told the Sunday Times.
“I’m the PM, and part of my job is to make sure I always have the best people in my Cabinet, to make the most of the wealth of talent available to me in the party.”
But after backing the Prime Minister in a WhatsApp group of Tory MPs this week the Foreign Secretary has come out today with a full-throated cry to support her.
“Are we really going to be stampeded myopically over the edge of the gorge, with an election that no one wants?” he wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.
“‘Quo quo scelesti ruitis?’ as Horace put it at the beginning of a fresh bout of Rome’s ghastly civil wars and which roughly translates as: ‘What do you think you are doing you nutters?’”
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