If Sunak goes the Treasury needs a real low-tax Tory

It could be Kwasi Kwarteng, the business minister. Or Nadhim Zahawi, the education minister, and before that the minister who helped make the vaccine roll-out such a success. Or perhaps Sajid Javid will even get his old job back.

With an investigation opening into his financial affairs, and with questions over his judgment growing by the day, the Chancellor Rishi Sunak is increasingly damaged goods. It won’t be long before there is speculation about who will get the second most important job in British politics. But hold on. It doesn’t matter so much who moves into No. 11. What is important is that the next Chancellor clears out Sunak’s policies – and tries some conservative economics instead.

Sunak could hardly have had a more catastrophic week than the one he has just endured. At precisely the moment when taxes are going up and the cost of living crisis is starting to bite, it emerged that his fabulously wealthy wife Akshata Murthy may have saved millions in tax by claiming non-dom status, and that he himself held a US green card.