Rishi Sunak only has himself to blame for the rise of Reform

By their rugby analogies shall ye know them: when Boris Johnson was asked about his chance of becoming prime minister, he spoke of the ‘the ball coming loose at the back of the scrum’. That characterisation sought to disguise his burning passion to reach the top. Getting to be PM would be the result of a mere happy turn of events and not something he would ever plot for, he implied. No doubt this will have prompted hollow laughter among those previously exposed to the white heat of his ambition.

But it turns out that Rishi Sunak’s capacity for self-delusion is still greater. For he has just told William Hague that inheriting the keys to Number 10 when he did amounted to ‘the worst hospital pass’. 

Given that Sunak inherited the post of PM rather in the way that Henry Tudor inherited the throne of England, one is inclined to withhold sympathy over the trials and tribulations it has subsequently brought him.