How Sunak can use Braverman’s biggest weakness against her

So Suella is going to get whacked then. One discerns this from the behaviour of senior ministers sent out on the airwaves this weekend.

Grant Shapps rolled out the classic ‘a week is a long time in politics’ gambit when asked if the Home Secretary would still be in post next weekend. Veterans’ minister Johnny Mercer expressed his frustration that rows connected with Braverman had distracted from Remembrance ceremonials. All this came hard on the heels of Jeremy Hunt’s icy declaration on Friday that ‘the words she used are not words that I would have used’.

When the temperature around a senior colleague drops so far and so fast it means Downing Street has not issued a supportive ‘line to take’ for those going out on the airwaves. So that minister’s number is almost certainly up.

But his apparent decision to remove Braverman to try and restore his own authority places Rishi Sunak in a position akin to that of a bomb disposal officer who must cut the right wires in the right order.