Tory leadership campaign teams are drawing up "dirty" dossiers against rival candidates and their aides, the Sunday Times reported.
At least two rival campaign teams are said to have handed the Labour Party files full of compromising allegations against their potential opponents, with the dossiers reportedly being packed with claims of S&M sexual kinks, extramarital affairs, the use of prostitutes, illicit drugs, tax evasion schemes, etc.
“There are rumors being widely circulated about candidates getting involved in bondage, domination and sadomasochism, claims of inappropriate relationships and compromising explicit photographs that could be used as kompromat,” a senior Tory Party source was cited as saying. “It has even been claimed that one of the contenders requests that staff deliver their government papers to them while they are in the bath.”
The source suggested that the upcoming race for the Tory leadership and the spot of Britain's prime minister would likely be "the dirtiest campaign in history."
“Everybody is desperate for this sordid period of our party’s history to end and for us to elect a new leader with bags of integrity who can draw a line under this disastrous episode. But that does mean that scandal now has a currency in the forthcoming leadership elections, which will likely make this the dirtiest campaign in history.”
Ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak, his successor Nadhim Zahawi, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, ex-Health Secretaries Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid, Minister of International Trade Penny Mordaunt, Attorney General for England and Wales Suella Braverman, ex-Minister Kemi Badenoch and senior Tory Tom Tugendhat have all announced their bids. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is expected to join them in the coming days.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab is understood to have ruled himself out of the race, as has the bookies' favorite, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace. Ex-levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, who was sacked by Boris Johnson, would not be standing either.
On July 7, Boris Johnson resigned as UK prime minister and Conservative Party leader following a spate of resignations from his Cabinet. The wave of departures came after it was revealed that the PM had been aware of allegations that the now-suspended Tory MP Chris Pincher was a sexual predator before appointing him to the post of deputy chief whip.
Johnson had denied lying to his team in No 10 about whether he had been briefed about a complaint about Pincher, before naming him deputy chief whip. Later, Sir Simon McDonald, a former top civil servant in the Foreign Office, bulldozed through Number 10's defenses of Pincher, accusing Downing Street of not telling the truth. He also insisted that Johnson had been briefed "in person" about a "formal complaint" into Pincher's misconduct back in 2019, when Pincher was a Foreign Office minister.
The government dove into damage control, admitting that BoJo was indeed briefed at the time but could not "recall this" when the allegations emerged in late June. Johnson then confirmed it, claiming he "bitterly regrets" not acting on the information.
Back in 2018, speculation was rife that ex-prime minister Theresa May's aides had drawn up a "dirty" dossier on Boris Johnson to thwart his ambitions during the 2016 Conservative leadership election. The document, titled WarBook2, included salacious details about Johnson's alleged affairs, drug use and political gaffes since his days in Oxford University's Bullingdon Club. At the time, May's team claimed they had nothing to do with the dirty dossier on BoJo.