Penny snaps free from Tory Party’s cable ties
LEADERSHIP hopeful Penny Mordaunt was on resignation watch from her job as Trade Minister last week after she spoke out against a proposed £1.2billion underwater electricity cable project backed by an oligarch and major Tory donor.
Mordaunt opposed plans by Aquind, co-owned by Alexander Temerko, to construct the interconnector under the Channel between Normandy and Portsmouth (the city where she is an MP).
Temerko, who previously ran a firm producing weapons for Russia’s military, and Aquind have
given more than £1million to the Tories and the oligarch has regularly featured in photos at fundraisers with Prime Ministers and their Cabinets.
Government sources said Mordaunt was ready to quit if the cable was approved. Although the project was rejected on Thursday, her ‘#StopAquind’ tweet hasn’t gone unnoticed. ‘There goes her leadership campaign!’ quipped a Tory MP who’s no stranger to the Temerko rouble – adding that Mordaunt’s leadership campaign war chest will now be a little lighter.
This is in contrast to Jeremy Hunt, who is also ‘on manoeuvres’ and a regular recipient of Aquind largesse which, like Temerko’s, is pure, selfless magnanimity.
M Speaking of MPs on manoeuvres, a surprise name joined the ‘Blue Collar Conservatives’ last week. The WhatsApp group, which, according to a source, mostly consists of Red Wall MPs campaigning for working-class issues, welcomed Tom Tugendhat, the privately schooled, Cambridge-educated son of a High Court judge and nephew of a peer. ‘He’s more ermine than blue collar,’ one ragged-trousered member said of 48-year-old Tugs, who, cynical minds might think, was expanding his support base ahead of a leadership contest.