LevellerLive

As you will hardly have failed to hear by now. Boris Johnson survived the vote of no confidence in him last night. With 211 voting for his and 148 against he survives. At least for now.

But how did Somerset MPs vote? After all they were effectively given the chance to choose the Prime Minister. Perhaps unsurprisingly some are being tight-lipped. There has been an assumption that those MPs “on the payroll” ie in ministerial positions would back Johnson. That would suggest that both Pow (MP for Taunton) and Heappey (MP for Wells) backed Johnson. Mr Heappey said as much on Twitter. Heappey is Minister for the Armed Forces, Ms Pow is a Minister for the Environment and she didn’t. Ms Pow did take the opportunity to say how much she felt she had delivered, but did not overtly comment on Mr Johnson.

The only MP who was explicit about his voting intentions, was Ian Liddell Grainger. As we reported yesterday, he voted against. Marcus Fysh (MP for Yeovil) would not confirm which way he voted though. And David Warburton is not a member of the Conservative Parliamentary Party. The MP for Somerton & Frome had the whip withdrawn from him following a series of allegations which are being investigated. This technically means he is unable to vote in the ballot. The Leveller® understands that as a result he was unable to vote.