Senior ministers are expecting a “total clearout” of Tory MPs ahead of the next election, as party sources cited the experience of Boris Johnson’s premiership, the increasing stresses of the job and a continuing slump in the polls as reasons for a forthcoming bumper crop of departures.
More than 40 Conservative MPs have already announced they will step down at the next election – the most for a ruling party since the exodus of 100 Labour MPs ahead of the 2010 election in the wake of the expenses scandal and 13 years in government.
