Johnny Mercer is BACK as veterans minister

Johnny Mercer is BACK as veterans minister just a month after his wife called Liz Truss an imbecile and compared her to a Muppet for axing him

  • Plymouth Moor View MP arrived at No10 as Rishi Sunak announced his cabinet
  • The former British Army officer, 41, said Ms Truss laughed when she sacked him
  • As soon as she took office on September 6, Ms Truss removed him from his post 

Tory MP Johnny Mercer will return to the role of Veterans’ Affairs Minister just a month after his wife called Liz Truss an imbecile and compared her to a Muppet for axing him.

The Plymouth Moor View MP, 41, arrived at No10 Downing Street tonight as Rishi Sunak resurrected Suella Braverman, Dominic Raab and Michael Gove to the Cabinet while keeping Jeremy Hunt on as Chancellor.

The news of his reappointment was announced on No10’s social media page and his wife, Felicity Cornelius-Mercer, tweeted: ‘So proud of him and huge thanks to the creators and signers of the petition too.

‘I wasn’t sure that he would want the front bench again; it was so bruising last time but ultimately he couldn’t say no for Veterans causes.’

The former British Army officer previously revealed that Ms Truss laughed at him when she sacked him as Veterans Minister, adding that the move was a ‘gut punch’ that sent him into depression.

As soon as she took office on September 6, Ms Truss removed him from his post and folded his responsibility for veteran care into James Heappey’s role as Defence Minister. 

‘When this happened it was such a gut punch. I remember Liz kind of laughing while she did it,’ Mr Mercer said in an interview for the Men’s Health Talking Heads series by Alastair Campbell.

Tory MP Johnny Mercer will return to the role of Veterans’ Affairs Minister just a month after his wife called Liz Truss an imbecile and compared her to a Muppet for axing him 

The Plymouth Moor View MP arrived at No 10 Downing Street tonight as Rishi Sunak resurrected Suella Braverman, Dominic Raab and Michael Gove to the Cabinet while keeping Jeremy Hunt on as Chancellor

No10 tweeted: ‘The Rt Hon Johnny Mercer MP @JohnnyMercerUK has been appointed a Minister of State (Minister for Veterans’ Affairs) in the Cabinet Office @CabinetOfficeUK . He will attend Cabinet. #Reshuffle’

‘She was giggling and looking at the floor and I was just thinking “I am a mug for believing these guys”, and it sucked the air out of me.

‘I was thinking, “I’ve given seven years of my life to this, put my family through the mill for it, and you are laughing at me”.

‘I tried to shake it off, went home, got pissed, all those things you shouldn’t do, but the thing about depression is it creeps over the back of your head.’

Mr Mercer, whose military career included several tours of Afghanistan, said that while he felt he had made progress for ex-service people, Ms Truss’s move made him doubt his time in politics.

‘It’s gone at a stroke and it does make you think “why did I bother with this thing?”,’ he said. 

After her husband was removed, Mrs Cornelius-Mercer said the Cabinet system ‘stinks’ and ‘treats people appallingly’.

The former British Army officer previously revealed that Ms Truss laughed at him when she sacked him as Veterans Minister, adding that the move was a ‘gut punch’ that sent him into depression 

After her husband was removed, Felicity Cornelius-Mercer said the Cabinet system ‘stinks’ and ‘treats people appallingly’

His wife tweeted a picture mocking Ms Truss as Beaker, a character from The Muppets television show and giving an account of Mr Mercer’s exit discussions. 

Ms Cornelius-Mercer tweeted: ‘He asked her ‘why would you do this, who is going to be better at this role than me, which of your mates gets the job, you promised a meritocracy?’

‘PM – I can’t answer that Johnny.

‘This system stinks & treats people appallingly. Best person I know sacked by an imbecile @trussliz.’

She added in a follow-up Tweet, ‘Yes I am feeling bitter. Please allow it – 24hrs then back to positives’.

Mrs Mercer had earlier hinted at her husband’s fate, tweeting that he was ‘waiting for the axe to fall’ five days earlier.

She wrote in a cryptic post shared online: ‘Politics is many things that never get easier; including the uncertainty of constant change that affects us all.

‘All the hard fought gains seem very fragile and solutions to outstanding issues get further away.’

Johnny Mercer’s ‘bizarre’ 2018 tweet about his wife being accused of being a prostitute in local newspaper comments

Former army veteran and Conservative MP Johnny Mercer was met with ridicule after a bizarre tweet about his wife and a local newspaper comment section went viral in 2018.

Mr Mercer, who had appeared on Channel 4’s Celebrity Hunted, was contacted by a Twitter user who asked him when the programme aired. 

But the Plymouth Moor View politician, who rose to the rank of captain and carried out three tours of Afghanistan, gathered a lot of attention for his strange reply on social media.

Writing back on Twitter, he asked: ‘I’ll give you once chance at honesty. Did you insinuate my wife was a prostitute on the Plymouth Herald’s comment section?’ 

Before being deleted the tweet was shared more than 1,000 times and sparked a mass of memes mocking the message. 

Source: Read Full Article