“I ALWAYS think a dictator is a good idea, if they're a good dictator,” the deputy chair of the Conservative Party has said.
Lee Anderson added that there aren’t “really” any good dictators – but said in a “perfect world” you would have just one man making all the rules.
Speaking at a ConservativeHome event chaired by UK in a Changing Europe director Professor Anand Menon, Anderson hit out at many politicians' motivations – saying that many of them were just after power and money.
The Ashfield MP said: “To become the governing party, to have that position in Number 10, people will say and do anything sometimes to get there. And if that means putting their own self-interest above that of the country, they will do it.
“Unfortunately, that's the world we live in. That's the real world. People want power, they do. And if they can trample all over another party and the country can suffer a little bit in the meantime, they will do that.”
He went on: “Now, I always think a dictator is a good idea, if they're a good dictator. But there's no good dictators, is there, really? I think Jesus might have been one, but there's not.
“In a perfect world you'd have a brilliant man who would make all the rules and be fair to everybody and live in a brilliant society, but we don't.
“Politics is a dirty business, and people sometimes say ‘oh leaders are backstabbers, they've got this job by doing that’.
"Listen, you know, to become at the top of your tree in this game, you've got to tread on a few people on the way up there.”
Speaking at the same event, Anderson said he would welcome Nigel Farage into the Conservative Party if he chose to rejoin.
However, he said it was unlikely Farage would want to join the Tories – a party he left in 1992 – and dismissed the idea that he could win a Conservative leadership race.
