A CABINET Minister said Tory plotters trying to topple the Prime Minister were acting out of “personal ambition” today as internal tensions continue over the partygate scandal.

Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said a vote of no confidence in Boris Johnson would be an “indulgence” and attempts to remove him were doing the opposition’s work for them.

Her comments on the BBC’s World At One programme came as speculation continued to mount that enough Tory MPs had written to the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee to trigger a confidence vote in the wake of Sue Gray’s report on lockdown parties in Downing Street.

Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab insisted that questions around whether Mr Johnson broke the rules for ministers “have been answered” as he backed the PM’s assertion that he did not intend to breach Covid-19 laws.

The Justice Secretary said he did not believe the PM would face a confidence vote next week and argued speculation over the matter was “yet more Westminster talking to itself.”

Mr Johnson claimed quitting his role over the “miserable” scandal would be irresponsible, citing “huge pressures” on the economy, the war in Ukraine and his “massive agenda which I was elected to deliver” to justify remaining in post.

But his own ethics adviser, Lord Geidt, has criticised his handling of the issue, suggesting that Mr Johnson’s fixed penalty notice (FPN) may have breached the ministerial code.

Lord Geidt said a “legitimate question” had arisen as to whether the FPN, issued for a June 2020 birthday party thrown for Mr Johnson in the Cabinet Room, might have constituted a breach of the “overarching duty within the ministerial code of complying with the law.”

Labour shadow communities secretary Lisa Nandy, speaking at her party’s by-election campaign launch in Wakefield, said: “This is just a damning indictment of the Prime Minister’s leadership that successive ethics advisers just feel that they can’t trust the integrity of the Prime Minister.

“This is a government that is rotten to the core, the rot starts from the top.”

There is a growing belief in Westminster that it is only a matter of time before the 54 letters from Conservative MPs needed to trigger a confidence vote are submitted.

Carlisle MP John Stevenson is the latest Tory backbencher to announce publicly that he has done so.