Even in government, Johnny Mercer is continuing to live up to his record as a straight talker. Speaking at an event for the Coalition for Global Prosperity last night, a loose-lipped Mercer took aim at his cabinet colleagues. In response to claims by Ben Wallace yesterday that Britain’s defence capabilities had been “hollowed out“, Mercer accused the Defence Secretary of pre-budget posturing. He added the claims were “fundamentally not true” and “a little bit disingenuous to the Prime Minister”. That should make collaboration between the MoD and Office for Veterans Affairs interesting…

Fellow cabinet members weren’t Mercer’s only target. He engaged in some friendly fire on pro-growth Conservative colleagues:

“My colleagues are an interesting bunch because they – you’ve now got these people pro-growth in the party. As far as people in Plymouth are concerned, we’ve done that to destruction, it cost like £30 billion off the economy… We’ve done all that now, we’ve been through that now and we’ve literally tested it to destruction.”

Based on prior evidence, Guido had expected Johnny to be more pro-growth…

Mercer’s offensive didn’t end there though, he then launched a coded attack on previous Tory administrations:

“Now we’re back to being professional and competent. We have to have a bit of humility; things have not gone as we wanted them to. But if we do come together around that, we will win the next election.”

Ever the warrior, Johnny of course took on the opposition. He denied that Labour is good on veterans, criticising the fact he doesn’t even have an opposite number. He then landed a fatal blow, saying “if you want to go back 20 years on veterans’ affairs, Labour’s the way to do it”. That rumoured defection is off the cards then…