YP Comment: Mugwumps Yorkshire folk are not

VOTERS across Yorkshire will be justifiably incredulous that at a time when Britain is engaged in the most crucial negotiations since the end of the Second World War, members of the Government appear more interested in infighting.

That senior Cabinet ministers are briefing against the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, when the entire focus should be on Brexit beggars belief and speaks volumes about the fractious lack of unity within the Government.

To distract Mr Hammond from the job in hand, securing the best possible Brexit deal from the EU, is disgraceful. And whilst Mr Hammond would not be drawn on who is the scheming architect of the latest slur which suggests he believes public sector workers are overpaid - a sentiment he denies - the rift between him and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is well known.

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The result of the General Election, which left the Government in a precarious position and the position of Prime Minister Theresa May untenable in the long term, has sparked a fevered, if clandestine, race to succeed her within senior Conservative ranks.

Yet there is little appetite amongst the electorate for more upheaval. Voters want to see senior ministers devoting their energies to securing the best deal for Britain and not to their personal ambitions.

The likes of Mr Johnson would do well to stop destabilising this country’s leadership and instead get on with the job. To borrow his own phrase, creating turmoil in Government risks making mutton-headed mugwumps of us all.