Can Rishi Sunak rescue the Tories from electoral wipeout?

‘At least I’ve been prime minister’ – those were the reported words of Liz Truss on realising that she had presided over so much chaos that she’d have to step down after just six weeks in office.

It is most unlikely that our next prime minister would react to catastrophic failure in such a manner. Because Rishi Sunak – and it will surely be him – is cut from a different cloth. Projecting himself as a success would appear to be his sustaining life force.

And yet catastrophic failure – on the electoral front at least – is by far the most likely outcome of his premiership. If it lasts two years he will have done well but it is perfectly possible to envisage it coming to a grisly end at a general election in early May next year, just six months in. For political precedent tells us that, while it is perfectly possible to oversee a decent economic repair job after an external shock and internal policy mistakes – which John Major and Ken Clarke did between autumn 1992 and spring 1997 – it is very much more difficult to avoid a punishment beating from the electorate afterwards.

The Conservative faction-fighting and self-obsession of recent weeks has been, if anything, even greater than it was in the early 90s.