Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Party time for PM but will rivals be invited?
PRIME Ministers current and future will very much have their focus on the West Country this weekend.
While Boris Johnson is due to be relaxing and enjoying his delayed wedding party at a lavish Cotswolds estate today, the duo vying to succeed him have their eyes on a date in Devon on Monday.
It is unclear whether Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak have received invites to the event celebrating the wedding of Boris and Carrie Johnson this afternoon.
Mr Sunak, in particular, is believed to have fallen out of the Prime Minister’s good books for his role in Mr Johnson’s political downfall.
The guest list for the Johnsons’ spectacular bash in rural Gloucestershire is shrouded in mystery but a number of high-profile political figures are expected.
It is much clearer who will be on stage in Exeter on Monday night though, when Conservative Party members in the West get their first chance to grill the leadership contenders.
A hustings event for Tory members is taking place in the Devon city. There will be one later in August in Cheltenham too.
Tickets are only available for party members but the event will be livestreamed on the Conservative Party website between 7-9pm.
Mr Sunak, who was last night due to run the gauntlet of being interviewed by veteran broadcaster Andrew Neil on Channel 4, will debate with Ms Truss on the issues that matter to West Tories.
Over the past decade the region has been a parliamentary stronghold for the Conservative Party but the loss of the Tiverton and Honiton by-election last month to a resurgent Liberal Democrat party will focus minds.
That by-election was sparked by the resignation of Neil Parish, after he admitted watching pornography in the Commons after initially searching for tractors.
The hosts of the Johnsons hastily rearranged wedding party, meanwhile, are Sir Anthony Bamford and his wife Lady Carole.
Boris, 58, and Carrie, 34, married in Westminster Abbey in front of 30 guests on May 29, 2021 . This was followed by a get-together in the gardens of Number Ten Downing Street, with limited numbers due to Covid restrictions.
They later decided to toast their marriage with a much bigger, post Covid celebration at the PM’s grace and favour country house, Chequers.
But when Boris was voted out questions were asked about the plans and apparently the Bamfords, the owners of Daylesford House in Gloucestershire, stepped in to the rescue.
Sir Anthony, a major Tory donor, was 30 when he took over from his father, Joseph Cyril Bamford, as chairman and managing director of JCB in 1975. He was knighted in 1990 and bought the Grade I listed mansion in the mid-1970s and he married Nottingham-born former air hostess Lady Carole Bamford OBE.
She set up a spa and Daylesford Organic to sell goods from the farms. It is now a chain with four London farm shops, a partnership with online supermarket Ocado and celebrity clients, earning it the title of Britain’s poshest farm shop.
Lord and Lady Bamford have donated an estimated £10m to the Tory Party and their MPs since 2001, according to Electoral Commission records. Lord Bamford also hosted press conferences at JCB’s Staffordshire headquarters including Boris’s pro-Brexit stunt as part of his General Election bid in 2019.
The party will be in a marquee in the gardens of the 1,500-acre estate in Daylesford, a village in the Cotswolds five miles from Stow-on-the-Wold.