Five people have been arrested after former Tory party leader Sir Iain Duncan Smith was allegedly assaulted by being hit on the head with a traffic cone. The senior MP was pursued by chants of “Tory scum” on his way to a Brexit talk on the fringes of the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Monday.
Sir Iain was walking to the Mercure Manchester Piccadilly Hotel where he was involved in a talk with Brexit minister Lord Frost. The Spectator magazine quoted Sir Iain as saying: “For half a second I was about to go up and punch them, I went forward and they all backed off – I nearly knocked them out, lost my rag. I can’t tell you very much other than they just followed us, used abusive language, attacked us and used a cone. They were shouting all along and then they smashed the cone on the back of my head and so I turned and grabbed the cone and looked at them and I took a pace towards them and they backed off. I threw the cone on the ground, said ‘pathetic’ and turned and walked off.”
