James Cleverly has made a bizarre appeal for Rishi Sunak to keep him in place as foreign secretary.
He made the unusual plea as speculation mounts that the prime minister could carry out a cabinet reshuffle as soon as tomorrow.
Appearing at the Aspen Security Forum on Wednesday, Cleverly was asked if he was in the running to be defence secretary after Ben Wallace announced that he was standing down from the role.
Cleverly said: “I adore being foreign secretary. My observation is that you become better at the job the more you do it, the more relationships you’re able to build.
“If anyone in the UK is watching, listening - especially you, prime minister - I very much want to stay put.
“I don’t know if His Majesty watches the Aspen conference, but I very much want to stay put as foreign secretary. It’s a job that I love, I think it’s an important job.
“I’ve been a minister in our foreign department since February 2020, so this is a job I know, the job that I like to think I’m good at, and a job that I absolutely adore. So my plan is to stay put.”
Ben Wallace said on Tuesday that he had been told the reshuffle could take place within days.
And Sunak yesterday refused to rule out carrying out a shake-up of his top team as MPs leave Westminster for the summer recess.