Who’s behind the Mordaunt plot?

There’s an old Russian joke about the difference between an optimist and a pessimist in Moscow. The pessimist believes that things cannot get any worse. The optimist replies: ‘Of course they could!’

These days the same joke could be made about the Tory party. As it slumps to its worst polling result since the dying days of Liz Truss’s leadership, MPs are debating which of two bad choices to make. Should they roll the leadership dice one more time or stick with Rishi Sunak and hope that for once his plan works?

So far, it’s not looking great. The Spring Budget fell flat, the party vice-chairman defected to Reform and an ongoing racism row involving the party’s largest donor has now revived talk of mutiny. ‘The mood has definitely shifted,’ says a member of the 2010 intake.