“Stop messing around” was Kemi Badenoch’s forthright advice to desperate Tory backbenchers, flirting with a Hail Mary leader switch before the election. The ex-defence secretary, Ben Wallace, who speaks as if addressing a slightly dim Army platoon, put the same thought just more pessimistically, as he urged colleagues to set aside fantasies of replacing Rishi Sunak and “march towards the guns” of the election reckoning.
Both believe that sticking with Rishi until the worst is over is the only credible course — switching to a third Tory leader without an election would cause a lot more trouble and democratic outrage than it could possibly offset.
