A Tory Minister has made a telling and embarrassing slip up while defending Boris Johnson on live television.
Business Minister Paul Scully said the Prime Minister would be held accountable at the “bollocks” box when he meant to say ballot box.
Scully was sent out on the morning broadcast round to explain how the Prime Minister could carry on without an ethics adviser after Lord Geidt dramatically resigned this week.
The Business Minister said he that he would feel comfortable without an ethics adviser so long as there is a suitable “mechanism” in place to maintain standards.
When asked whether he could say that Boris Johnson upheld high standards, Scully told Sky News: “Yes, I can.”
It was while repeating the case for Johnson’s defence later on Good Morning Britain that Scully slipped up.
He said: “Ultimately, politicians add ministers included are held accountable at the bollock, ballot box.”
Properly lost it at this…long week https://t.co/wLxXj8Plod
— Heather Stewart (@GuardianHeather)
Johnson has been warned he would be making a “big mistake” by not replacing Lord Geidt by the government’s former anti-corruption champion John Penrose.
Conservative former minister John Penrose said that a failure to fill the role after Geidt left in anger would leave “really quite damaging questions dangling”.
Penrose added: “I just think that the Prime Minister is currently overdrawn, if I can put it that way, on his account with both the voters and with the parliamentary party. They need to show that they’re serious about this.”
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