Six months after Sir Keir Starmer called on the Conservatives to sack their co-chair, Ben Elliot, for being “at the heart” of links between the party and Russian money, Elliot has quit.
Elliot’s decision to finally go had nothing to do with the revelations about the links that a private company he ran had to Russian business, or revelations about the Tories accepting donations from wealthy Russians or companies linked to Putin on his watch, but more to do with the fact his Old Etonian mate Boris Johnson was no longer the party leader.
“Ben had Eton and a social set in common with Boris, but he has nothing whatsoever in common with Liz Truss and that’s why he’s jacked it in,” whispers my man at party headquarters.
“He wasn’t convinced either that he’d be able to sell Truss to big donors in the way he could his old mate.”
Elliot’s resignation was the last thing Truss wanted as I’m told the prime minister is “obsessive” about building up the party’s war chest ahead of the next general election. She could also see the obvious political and social advantages of having the nephew of the Queen Consort in the fold.
I gather that Truss is much taken by the idea of granting access to business leaders who contribute more than £100,000 apiece to the party coffers – what is already being dubbed a “Truss-ed traders scheme”.
