As Liz Truss’s name was read out by Sir Graham Brady today, confirming her as Britain’s new prime minister, Rishi Sunak’s smile did not break. Whether his heart broke a little, we can’t know; professional to the end, he evinced not a trace of disappointment.
For all his graciousness, Sunak – who received 42 per cent of the final vote to Truss’s 57 – must know what we all knew at the start of the Conservative leadership contest. For the winner, the highest office in the land; for the loser, not a silver medal, but a millstone – the curse, perhaps lifelong, of being thought of as “a nearly man”. It is injury added to insult; Sunak, like Truss, has suffered relentless scrutiny and criticism these past few weeks. Even pistols-at-dawn duelling, banned nearly 200 years ago, seems in some ways more humane than a Tory leadership election.
