Amber Rudd’s ‘establishment’ dig at Boris Johnson

It’s now been over a year since the former Work and Pensions Secretary Amber Rudd resigned from Boris Johnson’s Cabinet, over the possibility of a no-deal Brexit and the ‘purge’ of 21 Tory MPs who voted against the government. After standing down in 2019, Rudd has since left frontline politics.

Could the former frontbencher still be smarting over her departure though? Rudd certainly seemed to give that impression in an interview with the think tank, the Institute for Government. In the ‘ministers reflect’ session, Rudd took some well-aimed pot-shots at the Prime Minister, suggesting his style of governing had forced her to leave her post, saying:

‘But I would have stayed – and wanted to stay – because I felt that there was important work to be done at DWP, and I regret not being able to continue that work. But it was Boris Johnson’s style of government, really. It was the way he treated other people and his determination to deliver Brexit, whatever the cost in terms of the economy and – I thought – the consequences to people’s lives.’