Blue murder: the knives are out in the Tory leadership fight

To Ronald Reagan, it was the 11th commandment: thou shalt never speak ill of a fellow conservative. Tories tend to observe the opposite rule: anyone ambitious enough to stand for party leadership needs to be targeted and weakened – ideally, destroyed. Attack dossiers will be drawn up, rumours concocted and poison darts blown. Fighting for leadership does not mean articulating a positive message or agenda nearly as much as it means trying to crush the other guy. And whoever can survive such attacks might – at a push – deserve the job.

The Conservatives ought to be having a period of reflection. They had, in Boris Johnson, a proven election winner – but one who used his 80-strong majority to increase the size of the state and force his MPs to vote against their manifesto pledge and raise taxes. Lockdown made things worse, with No. 10 governing by edict at staggering expense.