Boris is ‘like a cokehead’ claims senior Tory

Amid a blizzard of publicity pre-Tory conference, Sir Alan Duncan said the former foreign secretary and hardline Brexiteer needs a ‘regular fix’ of publicity.

Speaking to the Spectator he said: ‘There was only room for one showman in the Foreign Office. I get on with the diplomacy.

‘But for Boris? Publicity is his cocaine. He needs a regular fix.

‘And he equates getting publicity with having political power and authority and respect.

‘But I think what he doesn’t realise is that whereas he used to be an electoral asset, that is now waning.’

Meanwhile, as the Tories begin to gather in Birmingham, the divisions in the party began to reappear – mainly due to Johnson’s interventions.

Prominent critic of Johnson Heidi Allen hit out at the right wing of the party, saying they have tied the prime minister’s hands over Brexit and left her Chequers plan ‘dead’.

Allen said she would now back a second public referendum on leaving the EU because of the threat to jobs and businesses in her constituency and the rest of the country from crashing out without a deal.

Allen told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that she would still support in principle an ’11th hour’ deal hammered out by the Theresa May but that many in the party, especially on the right, would not.

Branding them ‘fiscally and economically irresponsible’, she said: ‘They have behaved unacceptably through this and have completely tied her hands.

‘It is they who have made Chequers dead and that being the case – they have made their position totally clear – then I think that it is the end of the road, which is very disappointing and for me leaves us with no alternative other than asking, should we come to that and no deal … then we need to go back to the public to decide what they want us to do next.’

Meanwhile in a television interview Johnson refused to rule out a leadership challenge or voting against a Brexit deal.