Tory leadership live: Priti Patel says she backs Boris Johnson as Rishi Sunak reaches threshold of 100 declared supporters | Politics

Boris Johnson’s father Stanley has said a general election would be “political suicide” for the Conservative party.

Speaking on LBC, he refused to say whether he would be supporting his son if he decides to run as prime minister again.

Asked if the decent thing would be to call a general election, Johnson replied:

We don’t have rules that permit that. Suicide is pretty much illegal in most countries in the world. It’s not advisable.

Asked if he meant that the Tories would be committing political suicide if they went to an election, he replied:

I think they would, yeah.

Sir Peter Bottomley, who as father of the house is the longest continuously serving MP, has announced that he is backing Rishi Sunak.

Boris Johnson was pictured arriving at Gatwick airport, after travelling on a flight from the Caribbean.

Aaron Bell has announced he is backing Rishi Sunak because his “competence and experience” make him best placed to “rebuild trust with the British people”.

Bell was one of the Conservative MPs to submit a letter of no confidence in Boris Johnson in February.

He gave an emotional speech in the Commons saying he had driven three hours each way to his grandmother’s funeral without hugging his family or stopping for a cup of tea. “Does the prime minister think I’m a fool?” he asked.

Dominic Raab has said he does not understand how Boris Johnson’s leadership bid can be reconciled with a pending Standards Committee hearing.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the former deputy prime minister and Rishi Sunak supporter said:

We cannot have another episode of the Groundhog Day, of the soap opera, of partygate. We must get the country and the government moving forward.

Rishi Sunak passes 100 declared backers

The leader of the Commons, Penny Mordaunt, says she “knows about the cost of living and how frightening it can be” in her campaign video. Mordaunt says she joined the Conservative party because she “believed in its principles and its values”.

The Guardian’s Peter Walker points out her narration doesn’t quite match the subtitles for the video.

As Mordaunt says: “My community has always helped me. It was natural that I wanted to help it in return,” the subtitles read: “That’s why my first action as prime minister will be to cut the cost of fuel”.

Presumably this is because Mordaunt has since dropped this plan since she last ran during the summer, Peter writes.

Priti Patel: Boris Johnson has ‘track record of getting big decisions right’

Here’s a clip of Boris Johnson’s plane landing at Gatwick Airport this morning.

Priti Patel backs Boris Johnson

More than 7,000 people tracked the BA flight carrying Boris Johnson and his family back to the UK from a holiday in the Dominican Republic.

ITV News’ Chris Ship wonders if some of them were Johnson’s constituents wondering why he was on holiday in the first place.

Since he resigned as prime minister in early July, Johnson appears to have been on three foreign holidays.

In August the Johnsons travelled to Slovenia for a stay in a five-star eco-hotel in the Kokra Valley, where rooms cost between £242 and £542 a night. The trip was described as a mini-moon to mark their wedding celebrations.

Days later they headed to Greece for a family holiday and reportedly boarded a private island hopper boat to the island of Evia, before travelling to Nea Makri, a coastal town nearby.

Tory MP Maria Miller said Boris Johnson must be thinking about whether it is “appropriate” he should enter the leadership contest as he still faces a privileges committee investigation.

Miller, who is backing Penny Mordaunt, told BBC Breakfast:

I certainly think that Boris Johnson would be thinking very long and hard as to whether it would be appropriate to put himself forward to lead our country at a time where … he is still subject to a very serious privileges committee investigation which could ultimately lead to him having to resign as minister.

I am sure he, who has put our country first in his life even when he was sick and in hospital during the pandemic would not want to jeopardise the stability of our country, again that is why I am supporting Penny Mordaunt because I think she brings that stability.