Stand up and clap, Boris told

AMBER Rudd told Boris Johnson to stand up during a standing ovation for the Prime Minister’s conference speech.

Footage showed the Home Secretary looking down at the Foreign Secretary and ordering him to his feet to support Mrs May as she struggled with her persistent cough. He promptly rose and applauded.

After the speech, when asked if she had given Mr Johnson a ticking-off, Miss Rudd grinned, before eventually replying: ‘Boris will always do the right thing.’

She later told LBC that Boris ‘leapt to his feet like the rest of us’. An ally of Mr Johnson said the Cabinet appeared to be applauding to give the PM time to clear her throat and it ‘wasn’t a natural applause moment’.

It is the latest clash between the pair, who were on opposite sides of the EU referendum campaign. During a TV debate, Miss Rudd said of Mr Johnson: ‘You can’t trust him to take you home at the end of an evening.’

Yesterday’s incident summed up a week in which close allies of Mrs May have raged at Mr Johnson’s grandstanding, which overshadowed the Tory conference.