Theresa May congratulated the so-called “Tatler Tory” at the centre of the Conservative bullying row during a party campaign event, it has emerged.

A video showing May, who was then home secretary, praising Mark Clarke for his efforts on behalf of the party at an event in 2014 has been uncovered by the Mail on Sunday.



It comes days after the party was accused of a whitewash over an inquiry into Clarke, set up after the suicide last year of Elliott Johnson, 21, a Tory activist who claimed he had been bullied by Clarke.

An inquiry by the law firm Clifford Chance said the party had been repeatedly warned about Clarke’s behaviour but exonerated senior Conservatives including Andrew Feldman, Sir Lynton Crosby and Grant Shapps.

In the video, reportedly recorded when May joined one of Clarke’s campaign trips during the 2014 Rochester and Strood byelection campaign, she told him: “What you are doing is absolutely tremendous. RoadTrip 2015 is great. Thank you Mark for all you are doing,” before leading a round of applause by activists.

The Clifford Chance inquiry found there had been repeated complaints about Clarke’s conduct after he was appointed to head the party’s RoadTrip campaign, bussing young activists around the country in support of Conservative candidates for last year’s general election.

However, the report said senior figures – including then co-chairmen Lord Feldman and Shapps – were not told of the allegations. Clarke has always strenuously denied the claims against him.

Shapps appointed Clarke, a failed parliamentary candidate, in June 2014 to run RoadTrip2015 having reviewed Clarke’s candidate file, which detailed allegations of aggressive and bullying behaviour when he stood in Tooting in 2010, the report said.

Feldman and Crosby, David Cameron’s spin doctor, as well as the former deputy chairman Stephen Gilbert, were among senior Conservatives who raised concerns about Clarke when it emerged he was using, without proper authorisation, the job title of “director in CCHQ [Conservative Campaign HQ]”, the inquiry found.

Johnson’s father, Ray, boycotted the inquiry and said his lawyers had demanded the release of the entire report and its evidence.



“There is very little reference in the release to the dozens of activists they say gave evidence to their inquiry. It seems as if it is entirely written with the purpose of exonerating Feldman, Shapps, Gilbert and Crosby. The whole purpose is to make sure they come out of it smelling of roses,” he told the Guardian.

“It is a very small organisation at [CCHQ], I cannot believe or accept that [it was] not aware that the whole thing was going wrong regarding bullying and harassment.”

The Mail on Sunday also reported that May had since given a No 10 job to one of Clarke’s associates, Jimmie McLoughlin, the son of the current Conservative party chairman Sir Patrick McLoughlin.



There was no response from No 10 to the newspaper’s report. A Westminster source said: “Theresa is known as an active grassroots campaigner and would always support efforts to get Conservative MPs elected.”

