Rishi Sunak ‘quick to anger’, ex-UK minister says: ‘His mask often slips’

UK PM Rishi Sunak is “quick to anger” and a man whose smile is “not always genuine”, former cabinet minister Nadine Dorries said.

A stalwart ally of former UK premier Boris Johnson, Nadine Dorries has continuously criticised Rishi Sunak since he took over as leader of the party and government last year.

When asked why she had described Rishi Sunak as “sickly nice” in her new book, The Plot, Nadine Dorries said, “If you saw him in his interview with Elon Musk I think you know what I mean. There’s a smile [that] is not always genuine – and I’m sure you’ve read many times yourself and heard many times yourself – but he was, he’s quick to anger, and because that mask often slips.”

I have seen this happening, she said saying that it was “just an irritability”- adding that it was “very hard to put on an image, isn’t it, all day”.

“It’s very hard to keep that fixed grin and that, you know, that cheerful chappy demeanour all day long when you’re prime minister. It’s like 24 hours a day, so I’m not surprised the mask slips because it’s quite hard to keep up that effort. I think that’s part of the problem,” she said.

On the recent reshuffle, Nadine Dorries said that she did not think it was right to sack Suella Braverman as she accused Downing Street of lying about not signing off a controversial article authored by her in which she accused the police of “playing favourites” with pro-Palestine protesters. On David Cameron’s appointment as foreign secretary, she claimed the job was “created” so David Cameron could be put in the House of Lords as it would not have happened otherwise due to the Greensill lobbying scandal.

Rishi Sunak brought back former UK PM David Cameron as foreign minister in a reshuffle triggered by his firing of Suella Braverman.