Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross twice refused to say if he has confidence in Boris Johnson amid Conservative sleaze rows.
Ross eventually backed the Prime Minister after being pushed on the subject for a third time.
Johnson’s Government has been dogged by a disastrous attempt at getting Tory Owen Paterson off the hook over breaches in Commons rules on lobbying.
The Government performed a massive u-turn after a public outcry and opinion polls have swung in Labour’s favour.
Johnson has also been hit by a spate of damaging stories over Tory colleagues earning a fortune double jobbing while also serving as MPs.
Ross, who has apologised for failing to declare all his outside income as a referee, was asked by the BBC Sunday Show if he still has confidence in Johnson as leader.
He replied: “The Prime Minister has accepted he got this badly wrong. And it has been an extremely poorly handed episode. Way back to the Owen Paterson affair. I broke the party whip because I couldn’t support what he and his Government were asking colleagues to do.”
Asked the same question a second time, he again pointedly failed to back the PM:
“It has been a very poorly handled episode.
“I’ve been very clear that the Prime minister has held up his hands here. We’ve seen some of the language he’s used around this, he accepts the Government have got this wrong.”
After being asked for a third time whether he felt Johnson is the right person to lead the person, Ross restricted himself to a terse one word answer: “Yes.”
He was also asked if MPs should be allowed second jobs.
“So I think there’s a big difference between paid consultancy and lobbying and second jobs,” he replied.
“And I think what you’ve heard is there’s members on all parties who are doctors and nurses, and these are people who’ve been back into the wards during this pandemic and help their colleagues because they’ve been able to keep their skills up while they were also MPs, and I think it’s helpful at times that legislators have, you know, frontline experience of what they are discussing, debating and voting on in Parliament.”
But he added: “No company or business or organisation should have an inside track into the workings of Parliament and think they can put that it’s true or not (or) get any preferential treatment as a result of that.
“And that’s why I think the Prime Minister and the Government are right to look at this.
“I don’t think it is correct for people to be paid as Members of Parliament to support businesses, or organisations to get that and inside track into the works of Parliament.”
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