BORIS Johnson today accused Rishi Sunak of "talking rubbish" as their extraordinary war of words intensified.
The ex-PM hit out at his successor for alleging he had wanted to bend the rules to dish out honours to his MP pals.
Mr Sunak this morning said he was "not prepared" to overrule the appointments watchdog Holac despite Mr Johnson's demands.
He said BoJo had "asked me to do something I wasn't prepared to do… and if people don't like that then tough."
But in an escalation of their growing feud, Mr Johnson this afternoon fired a missile back at his former Chancellor.
He said: "Rishi Sunak is talking rubbish. To honour these peerages it was not necessary to overrule Holac – but simply to ask them to renew their vetting, which was a mere formality."
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MPs including Former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, Alok Sharma, ex-minister Nigel Adams and Alister Jack were expected to be on the peerages list revealed last week, but did not appear.
Both Dorries and Adams followed Mr Johnson to quit as MPs, decrying a “stitch up.”
It has given the PM a huge headache of three by-elections to try and hold onto seats.
Whips are expected to fire the starting gun on the contests as soon as this week to get the elections done before the summer.
On Saturday, Mr Shapps put the boot in — suggesting Boris was yesterday’s man.
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Asked whether names had been removed by No10, the Energy Secretary gave a firm “No”.
He told the BBC: “The list that came to the PM was the list that went to the House of Lords Appointments Committee that looks at these things.
“Just to be clear here, it went to that committee.
“The Prime Minister has exactly followed the very long-standing conventions of prime ministers who simply take the list and pass it on and receive it back.”
Asked whether any names had been removed before the list went to the Lords authorities for approval by Mr Sunak or one his close aides, Mr Shapps could only say he was not aware of that to the best of his knowledge.
Downing Street declassified a document over the weekend showing the list of individuals from February approved by the House of Lords vetting panel.
A furious Mr Johnson believes he has been misled by Sunak who did not tell him the sitting MPs he had nominated had been removed when they met recently.
But Mr Shapps goaded: “Occasionally Boris wouldn’t be all over the detail, I don’t know whether that’s what happened in this particular case.”
Eight peerage nominees put forward by Mr Johnson were not approved by the body, with the suggestion the individual MPs would not stand down immediately or within six months.
Ex-Downing Street spin doctor Guto Harri told Sky News the authorities were not happy with the scale of the list and “some of the nominations originally”.
The row means three by-elections will be contested after Johnson, Dorries and Adams all stepped down.
A war of words has re-ignited between the Sunak and Johnson camps following Boris’s dramatic resignation on Friday night.
Mr Johnson — seen jogging with his dog Dilyn near his Oxfordshire home on Saturday — left Parliament after it emerged the Privileges Committee would recommend a suspension of more than ten days.
That would set in motion a by-election in his West London seat.
The panel is expected to publish their findings imminently.
Mr Shapps added “the world has moved on” from the BoJo era.
He said: “I think people around the country, inside and outside the Party, recognise that Boris was somebody with many qualities.
“But we are now in a world where there are different challenges to face and we’ve got new management in No10 getting on with the job and getting on with the priorities of this country.
“I think the world has moved on from what was quite a dramatic period under Brexit and under the issues related to Covid.”
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The ex-Tory chair was at pains to point out that Mr Johnson enjoyed success with the response to the invasion of Ukraine and the Covid vaccine roll-out.
But he added “people both in the Conservative Party and outside don’t miss the drama” of his administration.
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