Simon Clarke breaks his silence

Well, that was quick. Less than 24 hours after Simon Clarke called for Rishi Sunak to resign and tweeted ‘I have no further comment to make’ he has, er, issued a further comment. The former Levelling Up Secretary broke cover tonight after taking a battering from colleagues over his call for the Prime Minister to go. In an interview with the BBC’s Chris Mason, Clarke doubled down on his position but acknowledged that not all his colleagues would agree with him:

I totally respect the strong views that something like this evokes. No-one likes the guy who’s shouting “‘”Iceberg!” but I suspect that people will be even less happy if we hit the iceberg. And we are on course to do that. That is the point which I need to land with colleagues respectfully and calmly: We’re not responding to the situation with the seriousness that it warrants. Because I don’t want a decade of decline.