Former Tory leader Michael Howard has launched a furious attack on Boris Johnson over his peerages row with Rishi Sunak.
Johnson yesterday accused the prime minister of “talking rubbish” as the bitter war of words over the former PM’s resignation honours list erupted once again.
Sunak had earlier claimed that Johnson had asked him to overrule the the House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC) after it blocked peerages for three Tory MPs, including Nadine Dorries and Nigel Adams.
The prime minister said: “I wasn’t prepared to do that. I didn’t think it was right and if people don’t like that, then tough.”
In response, Johnson said: “Rishi Sunak is talking rubbish. To honour these peerages it was not necessary to overrule Holac – but simply to ask them to renew their vetting, which was a mere formality.”
But Lord Howard - who led the Tories from 2003 until 2005 and is also a former member of HOLAC - told LBC’s Tonight With Andrew Marr: “I’m afraid that what Boris Johnson has said this afternoon is simply not true.
“Mr Johnson said this afternoon, that what the prime minister could have done was simply send it back to HOLAC and then it would have been a formality. That is simply not true.
“HOLAC takes its role extremely seriously and if something had come back to it, it would have given the same answer.”
Lord Howard also urged Tory MPs to “put this Johnson psycho-drama behind them, rally round the prime minister, who is a man of complete integrity, who is working night and day to deal with the challenges our country faces”.
Dorries added further fuel to the fire last night by accusing Sunak and James Forsyth, his political secretary, of being “posh boys” who blocked her peerage.
She said: “This story is about a girl from Breck Road in Liverpool who worked every day of her life since she was 14 years old, had something offered to her ... people from that background don’t get offered ... removed by two privileged posh boys who went to Winchester and Oxford, and taken away duplicitously and cruelly because they have known for months that it wasn’t the case.
“And yet they let me and they let Boris Johnson continue to believe that was the case.”