Hammond leads Tory attack on Boris Johnson, saying ‘I don’t expect him to be PM’

Philip Hammond has launched a scathing attack on Boris Johnson, saying he does not expect the former foreign secretary to become prime minister.

After a day in which Theresa May and senior Tories lined up to heap criticism on her most high-profile critic, the Chancellor launched his own attack on his former Cabinet colleague.

Asked by the Daily Mail whether Mr Johnson could become prime minister, Mr Hammond said "I don't expect it to happen" and suggested Mr Johnson could not do "grown-up politics".

He went on to attack the flamboyant Brexiteer for having "no grasp of detail" on complex subjects like Brexit, suggesting his greatest achievement to date had been introducing the "Boris Bike" cycle scheme while London mayor.

The attack came at the end of the first day of the Conservative Party's annual conference in Birmingham in which its fault lines over Brexit, already exposed, started to crack open with just weeks to go to settle a withdrawal deal with Brussels.

Mr Johnson had used a Sunday Times interview to describe Mrs May's Brexit policy as "deranged" and "preposterous".

In remarks that will fuel speculation about his leadership ambitions, the former foreign secretary suggested that he could negotiate Brexit better than Mrs May, saying: "Unlike the Prime Minister, I fought for this."

In the same paper, Mrs May sought to put herself on the front foot by announcing a new levy on foreigners buying homes in the UK and plans for a national festival in 2022.

Asked about his suggestion that her Chequers plan for the future relationship between the UK and the EU was "deranged", Mrs May insisted she was acting in "the national interest".

She told BBC One's The Andrew Marr Show: "I believe that the plan that we have put forward is a plan that is in the national interest.

"This is a plan which ensures we deliver on the vote of the British people."

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson called for "a period of silence" from Mr Johnson, pointing out that he had given his endorsement when in Government to Brexit policies he was now criticising.

And former Brexit secretary David Davis, who quit Mrs May's Cabinet along with Mr Johnson in protest at the Chequers plan, was dismissive of his fellow Leaver's proposals on housing and a bridge to Ireland.

"I think one of the blights of British politics is politicians having fantastic ideas that cost a fortune and don't do much good," Mr Davis told Sky News's Sophy Ridge On Sunday.

"Boris is a great mate of mine, we have a very knockabout friendship, but quite a lot of his ideas, I think, are good headlines but not necessarily good policies."

Sunday also saw Mr Johnson's replacement as Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, spark criticism from the Latvian ambassador to the UK after making a comparison between the EU and the former USSR.

Speaking from the main stage, he said: "The EU was set up to protect freedom. It was the Soviet Union that stopped people leaving.

"The lesson from history is clear: if you turn the EU club into a prison, the desire to get out of it won't diminish it will grow and we won't be the only prisoner that will want to escape."

It prompted a rebuke from Baiba Braze, who said on Twitter: "Soviets killed, deported, exiled and imprisoned 100 thousands of Latvia's inhabitants after the illegal occupation in 1940, and ruined lives of three generations, while the EU has brought prosperity, equality, growth, respect."

Mr Hunt later used a Telegraph interview to warn Brussels it would stir up a "Dunkirk Spirit" if it forced Mrs may into a bad deal.

He told the paper: "If President Macron thinks... we will come crawling back desperate to rejoin the club in a few years' time... it is a profound misreading of our character."