A TV interview with Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries was interrupted by an off-camera altercation.
The top Tory was being questioned by Sky’s Kay Burley about the Commonwealth Games when she became distracted by the altercation.
“I’m sorry Kay, the Government … I’m afraid we’re going to have to go now,” she said.
She told the presenter “the cameraman’s in a bit of trouble”.
A man could be heard shouting: “Touch me then? You can’t because they’ll have you arrested for assault.”
Dorries said: “He’s not touching you.”
The man responded: “He can’t touch me madam, what do you mean he ain’t touching me? He can’t, I’ll have him arrested in five seconds flat.”
Dorries told viewers: “The cameraman did not touch him.”
The Culture Secretary seemed uncomfortable on camera as the broadcast did not cut away.
Man interrupts Tory MP Nadine Dorries interview with #KayBurley on Sky News… pic.twitter.com/NWqMJMk63W
— David (@Zero_4) July 28, 2022
During the interview, Dorries defended the £778 million cost of hosting the Commonwealth Games at a time when families face rising bills and mounting difficulties.
She told Sky News from Birmingham: “It’s not a vanity project … This is hugely important.
“Are you saying we shouldn’t have the Commonwealth Games? I think we are proud and honoured to have picked up the baton when it was dropped elsewhere in the world and to continue to run these Commonwealth Games in the amazing way that we have done.
“Everybody here – thousands of people – are extremely proud, including the volunteers behind me right now, extremely proud of what we’re doing.”
Also during her morning media round, Dorries defended her attacks on Rishi Sunak's clothing choices and continued criticising the former chancellor.
The Liz Truss supporter told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I am bitterly disappointed that Boris Johnson was removed by a ruthless coup, as he was, led largely by Rishi Sunak.”
“Removing a sitting Prime Minister who won us an 80-seat majority less than three years ago, who took us through Covid and led the world in the response to the war in Ukraine – defenestrating that Prime Minister was never going to be a clean or easy thing for anyone to do.
“It was always going to have repercussions. I think I said at the very beginning we kind of unleashed the hounds of hell in doing that.”
Asked about a petition to get Johnson’s name on the ballot going to Tory members, she said the Prime Minister told her “‘Tell them to stop, it’s not right’ – they were his words, his exact words”.
She also dismissed a Daily Mirror report that she might consider giving up her relatively safe seat so Johnson does not have to defend his more marginal Uxbridge and South Ruislip constituency.
Dorries said the claim is “100% nuclear grade tosh”.
