Speaking to Sky News’ Kay Burley on his first day in the role, he said he backed Boris Johnson as prime minister, adding: “The team in government today is the team that will deliver.” But his predecessor, Mr Sunak, and Health Secretary Sajid Javid both resigned from the Cabinet last night, saying they had lost confidence in the Prime Minister and “standards are worth fighting for”. Politics Hub: More resignations to start day as pressure mounts on PM – live updates They were followed out the door by a group of more junior ministers and Solicitor General Alex Chalk, who said his job could not “extend to defending the defenseless”. This morning, Children’s Minister Will Quince resigned from his job after being sent to defend the Prime Minister on Monday, only to discover that “repeated assurances” given to him by Number 10 were “inaccurate”, while the schools minister Robin Walker resigned saying the party had been “distracted from its core missions by an unrelenting focus on leadership issues”. But Mr Johnson appears determined to stay in place, with a senior Number 10 source saying he was “very, very conscious that 14 million people voted for him to get the job done and he wants to carry on on their behalf”. Mr Zahawi dismissed reports that he had threatened to quit if he was not given the chancellor’s post in the forced reshuffle, telling Kay Burley: “No, I haven’t threatened to quit at all. “This is a team game and you play for the team and you deliver for the team.” And the chancellor insisted he believed the prime minister had integrity, saying his boss was “determined to deliver for this country”. Use Chrome browser for more accessible video player 0:22 pm “not aware of serious” claim Pincher Mr Johnson will face his supporters and opposition MPs in the Commons later at Prime Minister’s Questions, before being scrutinized by the Liaison Committee on issues such as integrity in politics. The resignation drama unfolded last night minutes after Mr Johnson apologized for hiring his former deputy chief, Chris Pincher, despite knowing he had faced allegations of misconduct in 2019. The apology came after days of shifting messages from Number 10 over the recruitment and management of Mr Pincher, who resigned last week after he was accused of fondling two men at a private members’ club in London. The first to announce his departure was Mr Javid, who said in his damning resignation letter that he “can no longer, in good conscience, continue to serve in this government”. Mr Sunak followed up 10 minutes later, writing: “The public rightly expect the government to behave properly, competently and seriously. “I recognize that this may be my last ministerial job, but I believe these standards are worth striving for and that is why I am stepping down.” Read more: ‘The public is ready to hear the truth’: Sunak and Javid’s full resignation letters Image: Sajid Javid is pictured leaving his home on Wednesday morning More junior ministers followed, with Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for Transport Laura Trott becoming one of the latest, writing on her Facebook page: “Trust in politics is – and always should be – of the utmost importance, but unfortunately recently months this has been lost”. Backbench Tories also expressed their anger at Mr Johnson, with Sir Roger Gale telling Sky News the prime minister had “a great instinct for self-preservation” but was doing “colossal damage” to the party. However, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said the Prime Minister “consistently gets all the big decisions right”, while Brexit Opportunities Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg said his 2019 general election victory “should not be taken away from him because many people resign”.
Who is Nadhim Zahawi?
A long-time member of the Conservative Party, 55-year-old Nadhim Zahawi was appointed chancellor following the dramatic resignation of Rishi Sunak. Having served in various junior ministerial posts, his success as vaccine minister led to his promotion to education secretary in Boris Johnson’s latest reshuffle. Born in Baghdad to Iraqi Kurdish parents, Zahawi and his family fled Saddam Hussein to the UK when he was a child and has previously spoken of the extraordinary moment he watched his father on a plane trying to leave the country . the secret police came up the steps and he thought they were going to arrest him and take him away. He also talked about how he couldn’t read English at the age of 11. In May this year, he recalled being racially abused and dunked head first in a pool of bullies during his school days, telling Sky’s Sophy Ridge that it was “pretty horrible for a kid just coming into these coasts”. Mr Zahawi worked in the 1990s as an assistant to novelist and politician Jeffrey Archer, who was jailed for perjury in 2001. In 2000 he founded polling company YouGov and was its chief executive until 2010, turning the company into one of Britain’s leading market research firms. Mr Zahawi stood in the 2010 general election as the Conservative Party candidate for Stratford-upon-Avon and won. But the road to Westminster was not straightforward. He fought and lost two contests earlier that year in Devizes, and also in Suffolk Coastal – where he was beaten by his cabinet colleague Therese Coffey, the Work and Pensions Secretary. Despite representing Stratford for more than a decade, the MP said he was made to feel out of place. He told BBC Question Time in June 2020: “You still get casual racism every day. ‘He doesn’t exactly belong in Stratford-upon-Avon’. ‘He’s not from here’. Things like that. It’s hard for someone with a name like Zahawi who claims to be a born and bred Stratfordian, but still, I think things are getting better. There are a lot of people speaking out. Millions of people have come out and are saying ‘enough is enough, I can’t breathe’.” In a deeply personal speech in October last year, Mr Zahawi spoke of his own experiences of arriving in Britain as a child refugee and said the UK “took in a young Kurdish boy without a word of English and made him a minister”. . “Now it’s my turn to make sure the opportunities that changed my life are available to every child in every corner of our great country,” he said.
