Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)

RISK Fury at £32k

Two more quit as May brings in ‘iffy blokes’

- BY ANDREW GREGORY Political Editor

THERESA May held a fragile grip on power last night after two more top Tories quit over her Brexit plan.

Party vice-chairs Ben Bradley and Maria Caulfield walked out, both warning the PM her strategy would mean Jeremy Corbyn being elected.

Mr Bradley, exposed by the Mirror last year when he called for jobless people to have vasectomie­s, said he feared Mrs May’s Chequers deal would be “the worst of all worlds”.

And Ms Caulfield, the party’s vice chair for women who has called for a reduction in abortion time limits, added: “This policy will be bad for our country and bad for the party. The direct consequenc­es of that will be Prime Minister Corbyn.”

Mrs May’s reshuffle – forced by the resignatio­ns of Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson – promoted seven men to senior positions, despite concerns over their suitabilit­y.

Justin Tomlinson was made a Pensions minister despite having been suspended from the House.

New Attorney General Geoffrey Cox once failed to declare more than £400,000 in earnings by a deadline.

Kit Malthouse, new Housing Minister, once vowed to make life uncomforta­ble for the homeless and Dominic Raab, Brexit Secretary, called feminists “obnoxious bigots”.

And the new Digital and Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright has not tweeted since 2015. HEALTH Secretary Matt Hancock has accepted £32,000 from the chairman of a think-tank which wants to scrap the NHS.

He also took £5,000 from the director of a private nursing firm which supplies agency workers to the health service.

The donations will raise questions about the 39-year-old’s commitment to the NHS and could embroil him in a conflict of interest row.

Theresa May promoted Mr Hancock from Culture Secretar y to Health Secretary on Monday after predecesso­r Jeremy Hunt replaced Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary.

Shadow Health Minister Justin Madders said: “The NHS is our national treasure so it’s a disgrace that Theresa May has appointed a health secretary with links to organisati­ons that want to break it up and sell it off.”

Mr Hancock has accepted nine donations worth £32,000 from Neil Record, chairman of the Institute of Economic Affairs, official records show.

Mr Record, 65, was appointed chair in 2015 after seven years on its board.

The IEA’S head of health and welfare, Dr Kristian Niemietz, has called for the NHS to be privatised and replaced with a private insurance-based system.

Last week, on the 70th birthday of the NHS, the IEA described the service as an “internatio­nal laggard”, adding that “it

 ??  ??
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom