Sunday shows: Tory leader hopefuls part of “catalogue of failure”, Cooper says

Sophy Ridge on Sunday

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told viewers this morning that the Conservative MPs hoping to replace Boris Johnson as leader of the Tory Party have been “defending” the Prime Minister for years, have supported the government for the last 12 years and are therefore “part of this catalogue of failure”.

• On the Tory leadership candidates: “You’ve got this chaotic catwalk of contestants now, who all have been defending Boris Johnson for the last few years, who’ve also all been part of 12 years of failed Conservative government, with low growth, with soaring cost of living and also rundown public services.
• She added: “All of them – and they’re all continuing to defend Boris Johnson staying in post right now when frankly he should be gone – I think all of them are really part of this catalogue of failure. They’ve all of them been letting the country down and that’s why we don’t think any of them are right for the country.”
• On Boris Johnsons: “Nobody feels confident that Boris Johnson’s going to do what is right for the country. That’s why he should be gone now.”
• On whether a vote of no confidence would unite Tory MPs: “They’ve got to consider, do they really want to support him carrying on as you said potentially making more peers in a completely inappropriate way. But also nobody is confident that he is going to do what’s right by the country in the meantime, even as a caretaker Prime Minister, because he has so badly lost trust. It’s clearly just all about himself. So I think that’s what all of the candidates and all of the Conservative Party need to be taking very seriously.”
• On Labour’s focus on the windfall tax: “What it did is set out principle which was the Labour Party want to help people and families right across the country with their energy bills and the Conservatives who opposed it until we just put so much pressure on they were forced to U-turn on it”
• On Johnson’s meeting with Lebedev: “It just feels unthinkable that, at a time when we had a chemical attack on UK soil and it’s so serious that we had meetings with NATO about how to respond to Russia at that time, you could have a Foreign Secretary… who would then just go and have a meeting with an ex-KGB agent – someone who has since been sanctioned by Canada for close links to Putin.”
• She added: “To have that meeting at that time shows a careless disregard for national security risks. We actually need to know the facts about what happened and the facts about what action was taken once Boris Johnson returned and why on earth he was so irresponsible.”

Sunday Morning

Yvette Cooper told viewers that Labour is planning to push for a vote of no confidence in Johnson but that the party hopes the Conservatives will “do the right thing” and make sure that the Prime Minister “leaves Downing Street now”.

• On Boris Johnson standing down and the Tory leadership election: “It is in the national interest that Boris Johnson goes… You’ve got a catalogue of contestants to replace him who have all been defending him for all of this time.”
• On the Conservative leadership candidates: “They’ve been part of 12 years of really damaging Conservative government that’s left us with incredibly low growth, with public services being run down and with this soaring cost-of-living crisis that they have really failed to address.”
• She added: “That’s why I think we need a Labour government, we need a proper fresh start, we need a change from the last 12 years – not just the last 12 months.”
• On Labour pushing for a general election with a no confidence vote: “We still hope that the Conservatives will do the right thing and get Boris Johnson out of Downing Street quickly… Nobody has any trust or confidence in what he might do while he’s clinging on to power.”
• Asked whether Labour will push for a vote of no confidence this week, to remove Johnson from office as soon as possible: “That is what Keir is proposing but we are hoping that the Conservatives will address this at their meeting tomorrow and will make sure that Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street now.”
• Asked whether Labour in government would reverse the National Insurance contributions increase: “Rachel Reeves will set out what the proposals are for the manifesto, and you wouldn’t expect me to prejudge what Rachel will set out… We did vote against it.”

Jeremy Hunt, who is hoping to replace Johnson as Tory leader and Prime Minister, told viewers that he has never benefited from non-dom status and that he is “very happy” to publish his tax affairs if he makes it into the final two.

Fellow leadership candidate Sajid Javid said he gave the “benefit of the doubt” to Johnson instead of resigning over the Sue Gray report. Asked whether he always told the truth on ‘partygate’, he said “yes”, adding: “I trusted what I was being told and it turns out some of the things I was told… didn’t turn out to be true.”