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Tugendhat: My Roger Scruton row comments were ‘twisted’

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It’s the final night of Tory party conference and tempers are fraying. Three of the four leadership candidates have ended up weighing in on the 2019 sacking of the late Roger Scruton from his role as an unpaid adviser to the Department for Housing, after an interview he gave to the New Statesman (which was covered by The Spectator’s Douglas Murray at the time).

Kemi Badenoch said at a Spectator panel earlier today that ‘if you’re not prepared to fight for conservatives, to fight for your people, you have no business being involved in politics’. She explicitly mentioned the Roger Scruton case. Some might interpret that as a dig at Tugendhat, who spoke to BuzzFeed News in 2019 about the Scruton sacking, saying that ‘antisemitism sits alongside racism, anti-Islam, homophobia, and sexism as a cretinous and divisive belief that has no place in our public life and particularly not in government.

Steerpike
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Steerpike

Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to [email protected] or message @MrSteerpike

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