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After a series of spiky Twitter exchanges by Vorderman and Mrs Cornelius-Mercer over Twitter, the issue escalated when the Veterans Minister appeared on BBC Question Time in July.<\/p>\n
Express.co.uk revealed that he was in the show’s green room fuming at the attacks on his wife by Vorderman.<\/p>\n
Mrs Cornelius-Mercer has since branded the outspoken TV celebrity as “Vordermart” in reference to the evil character in Harry Potter.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the show, Vorderman encouraged her 810,0000 followers to retweet, she posted: “Tory Minister \u2066@JohnnyMercerUK\u2069 mocks military who use foodbanks: ‘personal decision’ he says. We pay his wife in his office 2015\/21 her salary ROSE UP TO 200 percent from 15-20k to 40-45k. The GRIFTER-MERCERS anyone?”<\/p>\n
Then shortly before it began she doubled down: “TODAY Tory @JohnnyMercerUK has been TOTALLY SILENT on this His wife\u2019s c\u00a345,000 salary, 200 percent pay rise since 2015 paid by taxpayers Vs Military pay freeze since 2011 other than three yrs @ two percent increase He says military using foodbanks is a matter of their ‘budgeting’ Wow!”<\/p>\n
Don’t miss… <\/strong> We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info<\/p>\n Since then the war of words has turned nasty.<\/p>\n Vorderman was branded “a snob” and condemned in Parliament by Tory MP\u00a0Siobhan Baillie for “looking down on people without degrees” for mocking Mrs Cornelius-Mercer for not going to university.<\/p>\n The ex-Countdown presenter, who got a third-class degree in Maths from Cambridge, had attacked Mr Mercer and his wife, saying: \u201cNot a degree in sight in spite of expensive private education! So who’d employ them?\u201d<\/p>\n Then in a surprise move, Vorderman complained that it was Mrs Cornelius-Mercer who had been “harassing” her, pointing out she had been sent more than 60 Tweets from the minister’s wife in one day.<\/p>\n But Mrs Cornelius-Mercer hit back on Twitter pointing out that she had merely redirected the abusive Tweets sent by followers of Vorderman’s.<\/p>\n She said: “I\u2019m really glad you put this out Carol, as it highlights perfectly the amount of awful & unnecessary traffic you send our way telling followers to target their MPs. All in your supposed quest to ensure that the public hate all Tories. So I sent it all back one day.”<\/p>\n Mr Mercer, a former army officer, came out in support of his wife after “a brutal week” of abuse via Ms Vorderman’s Twitter storm.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, former Tory minister Edwina Curry has described Vorderman as “vicious” while ex-Brexit Party MEP Belinda de Lucy said she was “having a tantrum” over the Conservative Party even though she has worked previously for Conservative governments.<\/p>\n But the ConHome poll also suggests that beleaguered Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has also benefited from the “Vorderman effect”.<\/p>\n He was the biggest riser in this month’s poll taking him to a +20.7 percent approval rating.<\/p>\n Sunak has struggled for some time after he was blamed for the downfall of Boris Johnson and there was anger he was installed in a coup after being rejected by members in favour of Liz Truss.<\/p>\n But he has recently been the focus of angry tweets by Vorderman and along with his energy policy and winning the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election, it has apparently warmed Tory members to him.<\/p>\n
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