Good morning. With impeccable timing for your First Edition editor, who has once again had to bin a perfectly good newsletter because of the internal ructions of the Tory party, Boris Johnson gave up on his dream shortly before 9pm last night. Barring a remarkable surge in support for Penny Mordaunt before nominations close at 2pm, Rishi Sunak will become Conservative leader and prime minister later today.
The task facing Sunak (or Mordaunt) is enormous, and we’ll return to that in the days ahead. This morning’s newsletter is about the reasons Johnson gave for his decision, and the other plausible explanations he would rather not talk about. Here are the headlines.
