Are the Tories suffering from summer madness?

Tempers have been flaring at Westminster this week as temperatures across Britain soar.

The political environment is becoming “ever more stroppy, ever more surreal”, with a series of rows erupting among leading government figures, says BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg.  

So what exactly are Tory MPs fighting over and are they, as Kuenssberg claims, “in danger of tipping into serious summer madness”?

Cabinet warfare has “broken out into the open”, The Independent declared today, after Treasury Minister Liz Truss attacked colleagues for demanding more funding for their departments.

“We have to recognise that it’s not macho just to demand more money. It’s much tougher to demand better value and challenge the blob of vested interests within your department,” she said.

The outburst followed reports that Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and Home Secretary Sajid Javid have been pushing for extra cash. Williamson is even said to have boasted that he could bring down Prime Minister Theresa May, claiming: “I made her - and I can break her.”

Speaking at the London School of Economics, Truss also laid into Environment Secretary Michael Gove over his planned crackdown on wood burning stoves.

Meanwhile, Business Secretary Greg Clark publicly rebuked his colleagues for trying to silence business leaders over Brexit fears.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt had said that warnings by Airbus that it might have to move its manufacturing abroad in the case of a no-deal Brexit were “completely inappropriate”.

And Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson - who has also come under fire for failing to turn up to a crucial vote on Heathrow’s expansion this week - was reportedly overheard saying to the Belgian ambassador to the EU: “F*** business.”

Speaking in the House of Commons, Clark said major employers such as Airbus were “entitled to be listened to with respect”.

One minister told the BBC’s Kuenssberg that the Cabinet was now comparable to a bad marriage, saying: “We’ve stayed together for the sake of the kids, given birth to Brexit which is now ready to leave home and we’re fighting now over who gets what.”

George Freeman, May’s former policy chief, told BBC Radio 4’s World at One that the party would “deserve to lose” the next election if they carried on feuding, and accused senior politicians of turning Brexit into “an alley street-cat fight between rival gangs”.

The infighting could come to a head at May’s Chequers country retreat next week, when the PM is holding a Cabinet sleepover to thrash out the final details of the Brexit white paper.

“It’s being called the body bag summit,” one MP told Sky News. “They’ve either got to back her or quit. A couple of cabinet ministers could be coming out in black bags.”