The Conservative party is in a terrible state

There was only one lesson to be drawn from last night’s Peston show: the Conservative party is in a right old state.

On it we had four senior Tory MPs who support four different candidates to be leader: the Treasury minister Lucy Frazer who backs Rishi Sunak, the friend of Boris Johnson Jake Berry for Tom Tugenhadt, Bob Seely for Penny Mordaunt, and Steve Baker for Suella Braverman.

They tried to be measured and collegiate. But for most of the hour viewers saw blue-on-blue arguments, mostly about why their respective candidate was better than the others, who was truest to the Brexit cause and whether a true Tory would cut taxes now or only when the public finances are in better shape.

Also, to boot, they manifested shades from sadness to fury with the soon-to-depart PM, Boris Johnson.

What we have therefore is a ruling party riven by ideology, notably who’s true to Brexit and can be trusted to shrink the public sector and welfare state, by personal animosities, or who’s been unforgivably treacherous to Johnson, and by naked personal ambition.