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Rylan Clark tears into Tory leadership hopefuls: ‘Stop being a f***ing a**ole’

Rylan Clark introduces Steps headline set at Mighty Hoopla

Rylan Clark. (Lorne Thomson/Redferns)

Rylan Clark has some simple advice for Tory leadership hopefuls Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss: “Stop being a f***ing a**hole.”

The former chancellor of the exchequer and the foreign secretary are vying to replace Boris Johnson as prime minister.

But both have increasingly taken to crude tactics to win over rank-and-file Tory members, such as inflaming the Johnson administration’s many culture wars around trans rights.

To applause, television presenter Clark launched into a rant about the pair on Friday’s (29 July) episode of The Last Leg.

Asked by Labour MP Jess Phillips for his thoughts on culture secretary Nadine Dorries’ criticism of Sunak’s clothing worth thousands of pounds, Clark said none of it “matters”.

“I don’t care what you’re wearing,” he said on the Channel 4 show, “just run the country right, look after the people of this country and stop being a f***ing a**hole.”

Host Adam Hill joked: “So glad you’re being careful with what you’re saying.”

The studio audience immediately roared with applause and cheers, with some Twitter users even jokingly calling him to be the next prime minister instead.

Clark, who is writing a memoir called TEN: The Decade That Changed My Future, shared a spoof chapter cover of his autobiography on Twitter reading: “Rylan for PM: You never thought I’d last this long… Just wait until I’m running the country.”

Only hours after Clark called out the potential prime ministers, Sunak launched one of his most chilling attacks yet against trans rights.

According to reports, Sunak will say in a Saturday (30 July) speech in West Sussex that he intends to look over the Equality act 2010, the plank of equalities law in Britain.

He intends to ensure that “sex means biological sex” and shield women from “erasure” by changing the legislation, a policy he hinted at in one of his first campaign pledges.

Truss, the current women and equalities minister, said on Thursday that she wants to “protect single-sex spaces” and put a stop to under-18s making “irreversible decisions about their own bodies”.

Both candidates have bleak track records on LGBTQ+ rights, often focusing on tearing into “woke” culture and opposing many reforms and policies that would drastically improve the lives of trans Brits for the better.

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