• Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said Boris Johnson was removed by a coup.
• Conservative MPs disagreed with her use of the word “coup”.
• Andrew Sunak and Ms Truss face off in front of Tory members for the first time today.

Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, said Boris Johnson was “removed by a coup,” and his removal by Tory MPs was a “huge mistake.”

“It is not a secret that things happened that shouldn’t have happened, that Boris Johnson was removed via a coup,” Ms Dorries told in her interviews with the media channel.

She added that she was “very disappointed” and thought Mr Johnson’s removal as prime minister was a “huge mistake.”

Conservative MPs disagreed with her use of the word “coup”, with Victoria Atkins telling Media : “I wouldn’t use language like that.

“I know Nadine has an exuberant range of language.”

And veteran Tory Sir Roger Gale tweeted: “Loyalty is a fine thing Nadine Dorries but Mr Johnson was not removed by ‘a coup’.

“He was forced to resign when too many of his ministers and backbenchers like myself made it plain that we were no longer prepared to tolerate his casual relationship with the truth.”

North Dorset MP Simon Hoare believes the term “coup” should be “reserved for military juntas, dictators, and the like.”

He added: “The democratic workings of a party and parliament are not coups, and it’s plain stupid to even hint otherwise. As I’ve said before: it was, unfortunately, suicide, not homicide.”

Ms Dorries also stated that Mr Johnson does not support a campaign to get his name on the Conservative Party’s leadership ballot.

Mr Johnson allegedly told her to “tell them to stop, it’s not right.”

The culture secretary went on to say that she is backing Ms Truss because she has “both integrity and loyalty” and can “pick up the baton” and “hit the ground running” as PM.

Ms Truss and Mr Sunak face off in front of Tory members for the first time today, kicking off an intense summer of hustings.

According to a new YouGov poll of swing voters, Mr Sunak has a significant lead over his opponent, despite the fact that both candidates are “considerably” unpopular with the general public.

Taxation and spending are likely to be contentious issues, with identity politics, immigration, Brexit, climate change, the NHS, and defence also likely to come up for debate.

Mr Sunak will try to regain his footing after being accused of backtracking after promising to temporarily reduce VAT on energy bills despite calling Ms Truss’s tax-cutting plans “comforting fairy tales.”

Ms Truss told members in Leeds ahead of the election that the taxes she is proposing to cut are “affordable within our budget.”

“What I believe is we need to keep taxes low to attract investment into industries,” she said.

“We need to turbocharge investment into the North of England, bringing more businesses and opportunities.

“The best way to do that is to keep taxes low and attract that investment into our great towns and cities, and that’s what I’m focused on.”

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