Rishi Sunak's 'dirty dossier' making rounds on Tory WhatsApp groups
India Today
As British Indian former Cabinet minister Rishi Sunak maintained his lead to replace Boris Johnson as the next UK PM, reports of mucky memo or dirty dossier are doing the rounds on Tory WhatsApp groups.
The race to succeed Boris Johnson as British Prime Minister got bloody for the governing Conservative Party on Sunday, with reports of damaging briefings against frontrunner Rishi Sunak and even a so-called “mucky memo” or “dirty dossier” doing the Tory WhatsApp group rounds.
The 424-word attack seen by ‘The Sunday Telegraph’ contains personal attacks branding the British Indian former Chancellor a “schoolboy” and a “liar”, who cannot be trusted on tax.
Headlined “Get Ready for Rishi”, after Sunak’s Ready4Rishi campaign launch, the memo reportedly brands the 42-year-old MP as having a “Big Tax and Big Spend” agenda.
“It’s coming from that Thatcherite wing of the party that was loyal to Boris,” the newspaper quoted a source as saying.
“There’s a lot of runners and riders and a frontrunner at the moment trying to create a coronation scenario. The dossier would suggest that he’s actually got a pretty poor record that’s not opinion, it’s fact. This is about winning the next general election. That’s why it’s being circulated. It’s spread like wildfire. There won’t be a Tory MP who hasn’t seen it by now,” the source said.
The memo criticises Sunak personally, saying he “publicly lied” when seeking to explain his Indian wife Akshata Murty’s legal non-domicile tax status.
Pointing to the fact he “secretly" held a Green Card to work in the US 18 months into his chancellorship of the UK, it casts doubt over his claim that “his resignation within minutes of [fellow Cabinet minister Sajid Javid] was an unplanned coincidence”, pointing out that he launched his campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party with a website domain registered in December last year.
