The MP for the Cotswolds has said Boris Johnson needs to put “personal issues” behind him in the new year.

Senior Conservative MP Geoffrey Clifton Brown told LBC that it is a “very, very difficult time for the Prime Minister at the moment.”

The MP, who is treasurer of the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs, added: “He’s got to come clean on a lot of the issues that you mentioned in your opening news.

“We’re all about to go for a Christmas break. If he comes back in the new year refreshed, able to differentiate between his private life and public life, and clarify all the issues and then start to do the really big issues that this country needs – restoring the NHS, dealing with carbon emissions and Cop26, how we deal with the economy, helping businesses – we can really get onto that agenda away from these other, sort of, personal issues, then I think he’s fine.

“But if we go on having these – what I call personal issues, issues of judgment by the Prime Minister – then I think that’s a very different scenario.”