Conservative MP Lee Anderson backs Dominic Raab for caretaker PM as 'we need someone a bit boring'

Lee Anderson, MP for Ashfield, says the country needs someone 'a bit boring' to take over.

Tory MP Lee Anderson has told ITV News Central the government needs someone 'a bit boring' to take over as caretaker Prime Minister, amid all the political turmoil.

The MP for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, said of Boris Johnson: "I think he should go, I think he should go today, we need an interim, maybe the deputy Prime Minister, Dominic Raab.

"Needs to be a little bit boring, need it to be stable, because it's been like a circus over the past few weeks and the country can't go on like that, people want to see sensible politics and now is the time for calm."

His comments come as MPs across the Midlands reacted to the Prime Minister's resignation - one calling Boris Johnson 'toxic' and another asking Mr Johnson to 'self reflect'.

Mr Johnson announced he is stepping down as prime minister on Thursday, in a resignation speech delivered from Downing Street.

He confirmed his plans to remain in post until a new leader is found. Reports suggest he wants to stay on until the Conservative Party conference in October.

The PM said the process for finding his new replacement should begin "immediately" and a timetable for doing so will be announced next week.

Other MPs across the Midlands have also spoken out following the Prime Ministers resignation.

Andrew Bridgen, the MP for North West Leicestershire, said: "My major concern is that Boris Johnson is now toxic to the government, to the conservative party and the country.

"I'm very worried about him carrying on as an interim Prime Minister until we have a new leader in place, I think he has no authority to make ministerial appointments, given the number of resignations.

• Andrew Bridgen, MP for North West Leicestershire, calls Boris Johnson 'toxic'.

"We need an interim Prime Minister and we need a clean break from Boris Johnson, he needs to move out of No 10 immediately."

The MP for Newcastle-Under-Lyme says Mr Johnson needs to "self reflect a little more" after he resigned as Prime Minister.

Mr Bell says he is relieved the PM has "come to senses" but needs to "self reflect" on what has happened, as the public "no longer believed what was coming out of No 10."

• Aaron Bell, Newcastle-Under-Lyme MP, says Boris Johnson needs to 'self reflect'.

He added: "I am relieved the Prime Minister has come to his senses today, in the last 48 hours of being very undignified, lots of good colleagues have felt the need to resign, I'm sorry that had to happen.

"But I think it's a sad day as well, I backed Boris Johnson to be leader, I backed Brexit, he delivered that, he delivered the vaccine rollout, even in these last 6 months when I've been very critical, he's done a great job on Ukraine.

"But it was time for him to go because unfortunately there was a loss of trust both within the parliamentary party and the country."

The MP says the next Prime Minister should be someone who wasn't serving under Boris Johnson's leadership.

He said: "We need someone who hasn't been serving under Boris Johnson, I'm going to be backing Tom Tugendhat, who has already got a lot of MPs behind him.

"We are working on that campaign right now."

In February this year, Mr Bell said he has "serious problems" with the leadership at Downing Street.

Mr Bell reflected on his own personal loss during the lockdown.

He said: "It seems a lot of people attended events in May 2020 – the one I recall attending was my grandmother’s funeral.

"She was a wonderful woman. I drove for three hours from Staffordshire to Kent, there were only 10 at the funeral, many people who loved her had to watch online."

"When asked about Boris Johnson's resignation speech, Mr Bell said: "I think he needs to self reflect a little bit more, that instinct changed because people no longer believed what was coming out of No 10.

"Obviously there was the partygate stuff, but the Chris Pincher stuff and the way that was handled was the last straw and rightly so for many colleagues, the way that was handled was appalling."

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