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Sky broadcast footage of former Tory minister tearing into Prime Minister hopefuls

Kenneth Clarke has claimed that Michael Gove would “go to war with at least three different countries at once”.

Sky News / YouTube

FORMER TORY MINISTER Ken Clarke has been caught on camera tearing into the field of candidates lining up to replace David Cameron as Prime Minister.

Appearing unaware that he was being filmed, the veteran politician made the comments while speaking to former British foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

Across the board Clarke seemed to be pretty down on the lineup vying for the leadership of the Conservative party, and has come under fire for referring to frontrunner Theresa May as a “bloody difficult woman”.

The discussion is instigated by Rifkind, who says: “I don’t mind who wins, as long as Gove goes and becomes third [sic]“.

Clarke then says: “I don’t think the membership will vote for Gove.”

He then goes on:

I remember being in a discussion once about something to do in somewhere like Syria or Iraq and he was so wild that I remember exchanging looks with Liam Fox, who’s much more right wing than me.
I think if Michael Gove was prime minister we’d go to war with at least three countries at once.

Clarke also showed himself to be no fan of Gove’s fellow Leave campaigner Boris Johnson, saying:

He did us all a favour by getting rid of Boris. The idea of Boris as prime minister is ridiculous.

He also reflected that Johnson’s fellow Leave campaigner and current dark horse in the Tory party leadership race Andrea Leadsom was not really in favour of leaving the European Union.

On this he said:

She’s not one of the tiny band of lunatics who think we can have a sort of glorious economic future outside the single market.

On frontrunner Theresa May, Clarke was more favourable, saying: “I get on all right with her and she is good” before saying that she had perhaps been too long in the one department.

He also said: “Theresa is a bloody difficult woman, but you and I worked with Margaret Thatcher.”

Sky News has this evening come under fire for choosing to broadcast the remarks, and according to the Guardian, friends of the Conservative party veteran have said that his staff have urged him to complain about the remarks being broadcast – something he has declined to do.

Read: The EU’s economic head honcho doesn’t think the UK will go through with its huge corporate tax cut

Also: Voting to pick a new Prime Minister of the UK starts today

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35 Comments
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    Mute The Divils Avocado
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    Mar 30th 2021, 6:24 AM

    No smoke without fire. An eradication of morale would fit with the recent reports on banning its members from partaking in a dance that every other emergency and voluntary rescue service in the country took part in. Publicising the organisation for all the wrong reasons. I don’t think I’d have much confidence in the management.

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    Mute David Corrigan
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    Mar 30th 2021, 6:17 AM

    “The official ‘Great Place to Work’ survey, commissioned by the Irish Coast Guard…”

    One would have to wonder if there are any connections between management and the company behind their own survey.

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    Mute Anto Curran
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    Mar 30th 2021, 6:56 AM

    @David Corrigan: wow that’s a fairly baseless accusation, one would have to wonder if there’s any connections between yourself and the unofficial survey that has no accountability or transparency (see I can do it too)

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    Mute David Corrigan
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    Mar 30th 2021, 7:02 AM

    @Anto Curran: Their own commissioned survey paints them in good light while the “unofficial” survey says that things are not so good within camp. Couple this to the fact that there is plenty of evidence of underhanded behaviour in this country means that there will always be suspicions around internally driven surveys.
    It’s not that hard to understand Anto is it?

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    Mute Madra
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    Mar 30th 2021, 7:21 AM

    @David Corrigan: those ‘Great places to work’ are a joke. A company I worked for won it once. They had more staff out on mental health issues due to senior directors and bully boy tactics.

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    Mute David Corrigan
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    Mar 30th 2021, 7:34 AM

    @Madra: Stone cold. There are a lot of people in this country who refuse to believe that kind of thing. It just couldn’t be true they say!!!

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    Mute Petulant mcbarity
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    Mar 30th 2021, 10:41 AM

    @David Corrigan: An unofficial survey might easily have a bias, being started by and forwarded to people with a grudge already.

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    Mute patrick boland
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    Mar 30th 2021, 12:48 PM

    @Madra: but it’s a great place to shop??

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    Mute Fintan Keating
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    Mar 30th 2021, 8:30 AM

    Why use a picture of RNLI boat and crew? Very different organisations.

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    Mute Mick McGuinness
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    Mar 30th 2021, 6:40 AM

    How many people actually use or know about the Coast Guard. Very few I’d imagine they do a great job when needed.

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    Mute flexfinn
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    Mar 30th 2021, 7:15 AM

    @Mick McGuinness: tbh here, everybody knows how good a job the coast guard and their volunteers do and luckily not many need to use their services

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    Mute Pat O'Leary
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    Mar 30th 2021, 10:21 AM

    Just as an aside, any sign of the official report on R116 crash in March 2017 (that would be fully 4 years ago) ever being published?? Not aware of any equivalent accident where within a couple of days they had the wreckage + a rough idea of what had happened, yet four years on people still waiting for the official accident report.

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    Mute Gavin Tobin
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    Mar 30th 2021, 10:17 AM

    Ask the right question, get the right answer?

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