This from Simon Jenkins:
There is no grimmer epitaph for Boris Johnson’s Tory leadership than the parade now eager to succeed him. On coming to power three years ago, he decapitated his party of talent. Like a new emperor fearful of rivals, he threw out the Hammonds, Rudds, Gaukes, Clarks and Greenings – anyone who offered an ounce of competence and dignity to his administration. Instead, the path to Downing Street has been crowded with a jostling rabble of second-raters. The party should narrow down its choices as swiftly as voting allows. Then Johnson must go.
Of Sunak’s rivals, both Hunt and Mordaunt have failed to capture the political imagination of the country, while Liz Truss has shown herself startlingly lightweight in her public pronouncements. Her attempt to portray herself as a new Thatcher and as the beacon of the party’s right wing is ludicrous. It is hard to recall her making a thoughtful speech in her life. She lives and breathes cliché. Most of the other candidates lack the experience and gravitas so clearly needed by the country at present. Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch have never even sat round a cabinet table.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/12/why-labour-party-tories-rishi-sunak