Post by pchallinor on Nov 13, 2011 15:36:56 GMT
A senior Tory MP is said to have predicted that David Cameron will be ousted in a backbench coup next spring during a secretly recorded conversation at a party.
Patrick Mercer is said to have told a guest he would rather have "a beggar off the street" as prime minister than his party leader.
Mercer agreed he had "had a conversation with a number of people" that had been taped, but he strongly denied the recording backed up claims that he had insulted Cameron.
The material had been obtained "by subterfuge", he said, adding that he was consulting his lawyers.
The former army officer was sacked as a shadow minister by Cameron in 2007 for making inappropriate comments about ethnic minority soldiers. He is known to be a critic of the prime minister.
Among the insults he was reported by the Sunday People and the Sunday Mirror to have levelled at Cameron were calling him a "despicable creature without any redeeming features", an "arse" and "the worst politician in British history since William Gladstone" – one of Mercer's predecessors as the MP for Newark.
Asked whether backbenchers would launch a leadership coup against Cameron, the newspapers claimed Mercer replied: "He'll go in the spring. He'll resign in the spring."
The Conservative party said it had no comment on the alleged outburst, but added that such remarks did not necessarily merit disciplinary action. There was no comment from Downing Street.
Mercer, the son of a former bishop of Exeter, served with the army in Northern Ireland and Bosnia and was sacked by Cameron for implying racial abuse was part and parcel of army life.
He said at the time his claim that it was normal for an ethnic minority soldier to be called a "black bastard" had been twisted.
The outspoken politician, who went on to be a security adviser to the Labour prime minister Gordon Brown, was among backbenchers who rebelled over a referendum on EU membership last month.
Guardian