Andrew Murrison (‘Back anyone but Rishi’: that’s the message behind No 10’s hints at betrayal, 20 July) may be right to argue that Rishi Sunak is the best candidate for prime minister, but that is more a function of his rivals’ inadequacies than his own abilities. He may wish to describe his hero’s reluctance to abandon the government until the very end as loyalty – and thus honourable. Others might prefer to term it complicity – and thus despicable.
Boris Johnson has tainted the reputations of all who served in his government, and his party’s only way to scrub itself clean was to select as his successor someone who had never been on his payroll. It has rejected all such candidates. Murrison may hope that at the next general election, everyone will forget all those months that Sunak sat next to Johnson at the dispatch box and the cabinet table. But they will not forget. Nor will they forgive.
Jonathan Allum
Amersham, Buckinghamshire
• I read Andrew Murrison’s piece with particular interest as he is my constituency MP. His replies to my emails over the last 12 months certainly did not suggest someone who put loyalty to party and country above everything else. He was sometimes circumspect as to whether he was supporting Boris Johnson, but sat on the fence until he could see which way the wind was blowing and then, as an opportunist, finally took some action. Being third in line to resign is hardly decisive, but may save his seat. As he gleefully told me in one email, he did win 60% of the vote in his constituency. You would have thought that such a majority would have enabled him to act sooner.
Sue Lewis
Edington, Wiltshire
• Andrew Murrison surely backs himself into a corner when he relates that his esteem for Rishi Sunak grew only after he attempted to persuade Sunak to “start an insurgency” against Johnson and he refused. This can only mean that, had Sunak taken the advice, Murrison would have happily backed someone who, in his estimation, had behaved treacherously. Nice.
Leslie Taylor
Barrington, Cambridgeshire
