Counter-terror police will be urged to investigate vandal attacks targeting Tory MPs, source says
Counter-terror police will be urged to probe fears of a campaign against Tory MPs after the Owen Paterson affair.
Vandals daubed ‘Corrupt scum’ on the windows of Clwyd West MP David Jones’s base in Colwyn Bay at the weekend.
Days earlier the words ‘Tory sleaze’ were sprayed outside the office of Wellingborough MP Peter Bone.
Counter-terror police will be urged to probe fears of a campaign against Tory MPs after the Owen Paterson affair
The attacks follow fury at Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner’s ‘Tory scum’ outburst last month.
Mr Jones was among 248 Tories who last week voted in favour of putting aside Mr Paterson’s suspension for lobbying on behalf of firms which paid him £500,000.
The MP declined to comment. But sources told the Mail police would be urged to examine if the attacks are linked.
Following last week’s storm over the the PM’s short-lived bid to prevent Mr Paterson being suspended from Parliament for lobbying on behalf of two firms which paid him more than £500,000, Labour leader Keir Starmer accused the Government of ‘corruption’.
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Vandals daubed ‘Corrupt scum’ on the windows of Clwyd West MP David Jones’s base in Colwyn Bay at the weekend
Meanwhile former Tory prime minister Sir John Major branded Mr Johnson’s Government ‘politically corrupt’ at the weekend.
Last week Mr Bone linked the attack on his Northamptonshire office to his vote for shaking up the standards watchdog, telling the BBC: ‘Trying to intimidate me and particularly intimidate my staff is wrong.’
Saying he had previously been attacked before and subjected to death threats, Mr Bone later told fellow MPs that ‘some of us should remember what happened to Sir David Amess and perhaps our language needs to be a little temperate’.
MP Mr Jones voted to put aside Owen Paterson's suspension and review standard system
Days earlier the words ‘Tory sleaze’ were sprayed outside the office of Wellingborough MP Peter Bone
Last year Conservative MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale David Morris condemned the actions of a ‘minority’ of ‘unhealthily politically-driven’ people after the words ‘Tory scum’ were spray-painted on the wall of his constituency office.
He said the words appeared after he was abused online for voting against a motion to offer free school meals during holidays.
Meanwhile Rev Mark Coleman, 62, is due in court charged with criminal damage after admitting spraying messages demanding ‘action on the climate’ on the windows of a Conservative Heywood and Middleton MP Chris Clarkson’s office last March.
North Wales Police said it had received a report of ‘criminal damage’ on Sunday afternoon and that inquiries were ‘ongoing’.
It said the incident would be recorded by the Welsh Extremism and Counter-Terrorism Unit as part of its protocol on Operation Bridger, the nationwide police protection programme for MPs set up following Jo Cox’s murder.
The Home Office said MPs’ security in their constituencies was a matter for their local police force.
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