No deal was done with Natalie Elphicke to secure her defection to the Labour Party, Shadow Paymaster General Jonathan Ashworth has insisted. Asked if she has been promised a peerage, he told Camilla Tominey on GB News: “There is no deal, no deal has been done. No promises have been made.” This follows Elphicke’s defection to the party after claiming the Tories had become “a byword for incompetence and division” under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. When pressed by Camilla on whether there was an offer, Ashworth claimed that Elphicke’s decision “reveals the decay and disintegration of the Tory Gove…
