A Kent MP has urged the party to end the "psycho drama" surrounding the leadership of Boris Johnson, saying the government needs to focus on what it could do to help people.

Tonbridge and Malling MP Tom Tugendhat said the government should revisit its plans for raising taxes to fund social care.

The MP, who recently declared he would be a candidate in a leadership contest if Mr Johnson quit, said there were other options to explore.

“This is a time when we need to be really focused on what politics is actually here for and that is serving others and not getting into some sort of personal psycho drama.”

He said he was prepared to see how the Prime Minister’s “re-set” would bring about changes.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “The last two-and-a-half years….have been really, really difficult on many, many people and we need to be offering a vision of the future that gives people options to rebuild their lives and to restart in new ways.”

On alternatives to the government’s plan to increase National Insurance, he said there was a case for looking at some form of private insurance scheme.

He said: “As an ideas party, I think it is right to set out different options and one of those options is to look at the lesson of history and the way we didn’t set up state companies to begin to explore but actually reduce the costs on the corporate membership by inventing things like insurance to see how we can take risks better in the future.

“What we are doing is relying an awful lot on today's taxpayers to pay for today’s social care needs.

"The reality is that there are a lot of parts of the country – particularly those areas where we are levelling up – which are likely to pay the tax but without getting the benefits.”

A number of key aides quit their Downing Street jobs last week as the fallout from 'partygate' continued.