When an asteroid hits your house, it’s a safe bet that you’re going to need more than a vacuum cleaner, a feather duster and some air freshener. That is roughly the situation the Tories face now after the election. Yet the party’s leadership contest — officially under way, with Robert Jenrick, Tom Tugendhat, Priti Patel, James Cleverly, Mel Stride and Kemi Badenoch in the running — has so far been almost entirely a festival of banality and platitude.
So fair play to Suella Braverman for delivering some much-needed entertainment on Sunday night with an epic display of toy-throwing from her armour-plated pram of doctrinal purity. “I’m sorry. I cannot run because I cannot say what people want to hear,” the former Home Secretary wrote in the Telegraph. “I’ve been branded mad, bad and dangerous enough to see that the Tory Party does not want to hear the truths I’ve set out”.
