Challengers to UK PM Johnson should temper ambition - former leader

A former leader of Britain's ruling Conservative Party has told potential challengers to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to "temper" their ambition, saying the government needs to focus on supporting the country through a cost of living crisis.

Iain Duncan Smith told BBC TV following a week of speculation about the prime minister's future that he was not "particularly in favour of plunging us now into a mess of votes of confidence, followed by leadership elections."

He said that would be wrong "at a time when I think the British public has a right to (say): we elected you two years ago but we did not elect you to sit there whilst our incomes are not enough to pay for the cost of our living."