Senior UK government ministers were in dispute over department spending after a blistering attack on ministers by the Treasury’s Liz Truss, which one senior backbencher called a “full-frontal assault” on Michael Gove.

Truss’s speech at the London School of Economics, which criticised overregulation, took aim at Gove’s environmental policies on plastic straws and wood-burning stoves, and came as cabinet ministers also publicly rebuked each other over business leaders’ Brexit warnings.

On Wednesday, Ed Vaizey, the former culture minister, took aim at Truss and the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson. Johnson is under fire for leaving the country during the vote on Heathrow expansion and for a quip at a reception where he is alleged to have said “fuck business” when asked about corporations’ concerns over Brexit.

In her speech on Tuesday night, Truss criticised demands by the defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, for more cash for his department.

“We have to recognise that it’s not macho just to demand more money. It’s much tougher to demand better value and challenge the blob of vested interests within your department,” she said.

The chief secretary to the Treasury said the government’s role should “not be to tell us what our tastes should be”, adding: “Too often we’re hearing about not drinking too much, eating too many doughnuts or enjoying the warm glow of our wood-burning Goves – I mean stoves.

“I can see their point: there’s enough hot air and smoke at the environment department already.”

Vaizey said the speech was light-hearted and suggested that Truss was hoping for promotion. “If anyone can take it on the chin, it’s probably Michael Gove,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“If you’re deciding which side of the argument to fall on, protecting our seas and oceans or overregulation, I think most of the public will fall down on Michael Gove’s side.

“Liz Truss has achieved what she wanted to achieve, which is to reposition herself and getting herself much more noticed than perhaps she has been in the past.”

Vaizey, a close ally of the environment secretary, hinted at backbench frustration with the manoeuvring. “One sees a whole spectrum of approaches from members of the cabinet as we come the final conclusion of Brexit, when it comes to how they position themselves,” he said.

The business secretary, Greg Clark, also joined the fray in a speech on Tuesday, setting out a vision for soft Brexit that would keep a form of single market access for goods and for services, stressing the importance of labour mobility.

“The business voice puts evidence before ideology and brings the actual experience of trading with Europe and the rest of the world, not a theoretical view of what the world might be like,” he told the Times CEO summit, in comments aimed squarely at Johnson and the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt.

Over the weekend, Hunt said it was “completely inappropriate” for businesses such as Airbus to threaten to cut jobs over Brexit disruption.

The justice secretary, David Gauke, also criticised Johnson on Wednesday morning, telling the BBC that his colleague’s remark about business was “probably not wise”.

“Business is hugely important to us and I certainly don’t think anyone should be dismissive,” he said.



The prime minister was forced to use her speech at the summit to smooth over the cabinet attacks on business leaders. “A Conservative government will always listen to your voice,” she said. “It’s right that business makes its voice heard.”

May will attempt to bring her warring cabinet together, to finally agree the Brexit white paper to set out the government’s vision for future trading arrangements, at a summit at her Chequers country retreat on 6 July. The long-awaited paper will then be published on 9 July.

The full cabinet will attend, which has alarmed some Brexiter ministers who believe there is a soft-Brexit majority in the cabinet, unlike the inner Brexit subcommittee, which is more finely balanced.

Most concerned is Johnson, who was given the cold shoulder by the cabinet on Tuesday after outbursts over Brexit and flying to Afghanistan to avoid a crunch vote on Heathrow expansion.

Senior Tories have privately suggested that in recent weeks he may have lost the support of backbenchers, who pick the final two in any leadership contest, and with it any chance of succeeding May.

Vaizey was also critical of the foreign secretary on Wednesday, intimating that many backbenchers did not want further prevaricating on Brexit.

“The frustrating thing for me is every time the prime minister makes progress with Brexit, members of the cabinet … those who might have recently gone to Afghanistan, for example, set out completely alternative versions, which having climbed up the ladder, then sends us back down the snake,” he said.



“My instinct as a backbenchers is that we want the prime minister and the party to unite behind one position and that includes senior members of the cabinet.”