Penrith MP and Tory leadership hopeful Rory Stewart has claimed that his experience in dealing with Cumbria's floods will help him to get things done.

Mr Stewart also revealed that he could not serve in a government led by Boris Johnson pushing a no-deal agenda.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast this morning the International Development Secretary first paid tribute to the service of outgoing Prime Minister, Theresa May.

He said: "I have been a real admirer in the cabinet and the National Security Council of the way the Prime Minister conducted herself. I keep coming back to these phrases, but they are true, she has been an amazing public servant and I have been proud to serve her, I feel immense loyalty to her."

When his loyalty to the outgoing Prime Minister was then questioned he replied: "I never (acted) to unseat her. Just before she put me in the cabinet she agreed she was standing down and I said I was going to put my name forward to succeed her.

"But I have been, as I hope you've seen, one of her strongest supporters."

The Penrith and the Border MP says he is driven to provide a better country for his children to grow up in.

He continued: "Anybody selling magic answers at the moment is misleading the country and misleading themselves. I have got a two and three-year-old and I want the country when they are 17 and 19 to be a country they and the whole world are proud of.

"A country where people look at British hospitals and British schools and think they are amazing."

He added that he wanted to address the everyday problems expressed by his constituents and make the country a "much, much better place".

The 46-year-old was then quizzed on how he would approach Brexit differently to his potential predecessor.

"To be really blunt, and I find this a difficult thing to say a day after the Prime Minister left, she was very very good at certain parts of her job, she was a wonderful chair of the cabinet and the national Security council. I am afraid what I think she wasn't as good at was negotiating, communicating and reaching out across the House of Commons.

"There are all these Labour MPs, and I can think of probably a dozen who came up to me and said they wanted to vote for this deal, but nobody wanted to listen to them, nobody sat them down and nobody made them any offers. I am not saying it is easy, but I promise the alternatives of going for no-deal or going for a second referendum are much, much worse.

"It isn't about setting red lines, that is the mistake I'm afraid the Prime Minister made. It is the same mistake Boris is now making. It is about negotiating.

"To negotiate you don't go on television and set out red lines, you listen to people, you communicate in Brussels, you communicate in Parliament. It is like negotiating any deal, red lines are not the way forward. It is not about this, that, or the other, it is about how you do it. It is about how you talk, how you bring people behind you. People have to trust you and a fresh new leader gives you the opportunity to do that."

Bookies have made the former Foreign Secretary and London Mayor Boris Johnson the frontrunner for the job, but Mr Stewart says he will never compete with the fame of Boris.

"I am never going to make the brand Rory as famous as Boris, he's an extraordinary celebrity. He's the nearest thing we have in this country to the kind of politicians we have seen in the United States and Italy recently, but I'm not that kind of person.

"What I'm bringing, I hope, is an ability to prove action. I worked with Boris in the Foreign Office, but I think what I demonstrated as Prisons Minister and what I demonstrated when I was dealing with the floods in Cumbria is that I am somebody who gets something done.

"I am also not somebody who has been all my life a professional politician, I've not been a journalist. I am somebody who setting up a charity in Afghanistan, who working in a war zone in Iraq, has proved that I can turn things around. That I am not about talk, I am about action.

Mr Stewart continued: "I'm afraid, and it gives me pain to say this, but I would not serve in a Boris cabinet. If he asked me to be his Foreign Secretary or his International Development Secretary I'd have to say no, because of the policy he is pursuing.

"I sat down with Boris two weeks ago, I thought he'd assured me that he was not going to go for a no-deal Brexit and unfortunately he has now come out saying that he will crash out of the European Union at the end of October.

"He is not being straight with people. He's a very smart man, but we have to be straight about the fact that no-deal isn't a thing.

"If you offer that to people, even if it gets you elected, it will damage the country because it is a recipe for uncertainty and delay. Sadly, I would not be prepared to serve in Boris' cabinet."