Tory candidate refused to say if Boris Johnson is honest or not when asked twice

As the impact of the partygate scandal and the confidence vote in Boris Johnson continues to be felt, a Tory candidate has declined to say that Boris Johnson is honest.

And that’s coming from a member of his own party – one looking to win an upcoming by-election, no less.

The Conservative candidate in Tiverton and Honiton, Helen Hurford, also blamed the media for preventing people from “moving on” from partygate during an interview with the Guardian.

When asked if Johnson was fundamentally honest, Hurford refused to say. Not once, but twice.

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Asked the first time, she didn’t answer directly, but instead said: “I will be giving my loyalty to somebody who has been given a third mandate by the party. This has happened. We need to move on.”

Asked again whether Johnson was fundamentally honest, she said: “I think Boris thinks that he is an honest person. How I conduct myself is how I conduct myself, and I think you are trying to catch me out here.”

Johnson 'thinks he's honest' according to the Tory candidateJacob King - WPA Pool/Getty Images

Hurford is defending the majority of 24,000 won by MP Neil Parish in 2019. Paris resigned earlier this year after admitting to watching pon on his phone in the Commons.

Speaking about the competition between Hurford and the Liberal Democrat candidate, Richard Foord, the Tory candidate said: “I think it’s going to be very tight, and we can’t take anything for granted whatsoever. It could come down to very small numbers.”

Discussing the media’s impact on the discourse surrounding partygate, Hurford said: “The media’s persistent regurgitating of Partygate – even though there has been a line drawn in the sand, and there has been a report, it is constantly in the news, and people aren’t allowed to move on from it.”