Latest Tory scandal shows why Sunak and his useless cronies HAVE to go, says Kelvin MacKenzie
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There are two parallel scandals in the Mark Menzies affair. The first is Menzies himself. He should have never have gone into public life as a Tory MP.
That career is now over with the revelation by The Times that Menzies, 52, called a former campaign manager at 3.15am (the lady in question is 78) asking if she could lay her hands on £5,000 as he had fallen in with ‘’bad people’’ who had him locked in a flat.
That money was eventually paid out of local party campaign funds in Fylde, Lancashire (donated by local people) and has never been repaid. Angry donors are now calling in the police. Quite right too.
The second scandal is the reaction of Conservative Party leaders (including the Simon Hart, the Chief Whip) who have apparently known about all this since January, but did nothing until it exploded across the news. Why? Did they believe it would just go away.
Tories have known for years that Menzies was a problem. Back in 2014, the Sunday Mirror ran a front-page story in which a 19-year-old Brazilian rent boy called Santos claimed Menzies had paid him for sex and asked him to buy an illegal drug. Santos said the MP had taken drugs on previous occasions.
At the time Menzies resigned as a ministerial aide, said some of the allegations were untrue and claimed he would be setting the record straight. A decade later we are still waiting for the "record" to be corrected.
Clock forward a decade to that phone call. The elderly lady told Menzies it was 3.15am and she couldn’t transfer any money without leaving the house. He allegedly became angry telling her it was a "matter of life and death". Further, and disgracefully, he is said to have demanded she instead lend the money from her own savings.
I do so admire her reaction. Imagine if your ex-boss called you in the early hours seeking £5,000 at a moment’s notice. I think most would reply with two words, the second being "Off".
Menzies, a single man, has a 16,000 majority in Fylde and until this scandal was considered a safe blue seat. That moment has gone. Menzies has had the whip removed and the reality is that they Conservatives will lose a summer by-election. That to me is good news.
The money that went to Menzies blackmailers was local money created by the hard work of local people. The idea that an MP could use to it to get out of a tricky situation is quite shocking.
The Tory leadership have brought much of his on themselves. They should have acted as soon as they heard the details, but instead hoped a cover-up would get them through this scandal. Instead, it has had the reverse effect.
Every decision taken by the Conservative leadership seems designed to destroy its chances at the general election. Nigel Farage must literally rub his hands together every time he picks up a paper or turns on the television as a new nightmare for Sunak appears.