Loyalty has long been the Tories’ secret weapon. Without it, Sunak stands no chance

‘Sunak as prime minister must face the toughest struggle of any since the second world war.’ Photograph: UK Parliament/Jessica Taylor/PA

I once pondered a career in politics but an elder statesman strongly advised me against it. I asked why. Because, he said, you are too interested in politics. Stick to journalism. A political career was not about politics, but about loyalty.

Never a truer word was spoken. As the tottering frame of Britain’s Tory party heads for collapse at the end of this parliament, it is clearly suffering death throes. Loyalty, long that party’s “secret weapon”, has deserted it. With an awesome electoral ordeal ahead, its leader Rishi Sunak had to watch colleagues and backbenchers alike attend a rally of an ultra-conservative US sect to discuss what Tories really believe, 13 years after they have supposedly been practising it.