Andrew Murrison (‘Back anyone but Rishi’: that’s the message behind No 10’s hints at betrayal, 20 July) may be right to argue that Rishi Sunak is the best candidate for prime minister, but that is more a function of his rivals’ inadequacies than his own abilities. He may wish to describe his hero’s reluctance to abandon the government until the very end as loyalty – and thus honourable. Others might prefer to term it complicity – and thus despicable.
Boris Johnson has tainted the reputations of all who served in his government, and his party’s only way to scrub itself clean was to select as his successor someone who had never been on his payroll. It has rejected all such candidates. Murrison may hope that at the next general election, everyone will forget all those months that Sunak sat next to Johnson at the dispatch box and the cabinet table. But they will not forget. Nor will they forgive.
Jonathan Allum
Amersham, Buckinghamshire
