A millionaire Conservative donor who attended a lockdown-busting party with former mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey has said it is “probably time for a change” as he backed Sir Keir Starmer to become the next prime minister.
Property tycoon Nick Candy, whose wife Holly Valance this week described leftie ideals as “crap”, took aim at Rishi Sunak’s government, saying in-fighting in the Tory Party has given them a bad name.
He also attacked the power and influence of party advisers such as Dominic Cummings, who was widely regarded to be pulling the strings in the Boris Johnson administration.
“I think it’s probably time for a change”, Candy said. “I think all this infighting in the Tories even now with talk of Kemi Badenoch replacing Rishi by mid-May with people that have nothing to do with…
“The British people should know what’s going on. And the likes of [Tory adviser] Dougie Smith and Dominic Cummings, who I’ve never met, so they think they can just pick and choose who’s going to be the leader of the Conservative Party under their remit.
“I think it’s wrong, and based on that maybe it’s time for some change.”
Speaking to Bloomberg’s In the City podcast, Candy said that we “still don’t know the Labour policies”, but added: “Do I think Keir Starmer’s a decent man with good values and good morals? One hundred per cent.”
Although he admitted voting for Tony Blair in 1997, Candy said he was naturally a Tory.
He backed Conservative Shaun Bailey’s unsuccessful campaign to be mayor of London in 2021 and was spotted at Mr Bailey’s lockdown party in December 2020, when indoor household mixing was banned.
Later in the podcast, when discussing property markets here and abroad, he praised the government of Dubai, adding: “I would love to have leadership like that in this country where politics aren’t in the way and they actually make really good decisions, smart decisions fast.
“The problem is here it takes for ever. Democracies are great when you’ve got visionary leadership and you’ve got people working together to get things done. It seems like for the last few years we’ve been infighting.”
Related: Putin claims he was ready to end war 18 months ago – but Boris Johnson scuppered peace talks
