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The race to replace Boris Johnson as Conservative Party leader and therefore prime minister has fast turned into a Rorschach test designed to discover all the different ways Britain’s conservatives are miserable.
In Rishi Sunak, the former finance minister, Conservative party members see a man who was disloyal to Johnson by leading the exodus of cabinet officials which ultimately led to Johnson’s downfall earlier this month. Worse, they see him as being disloyal to the very principles of what it means to be a Conservative. In Liz Truss, the incumbent foreign minister, they see a decaf Margaret Thatcher who will do anything to attain power.
The polls suggest either of them would lose the next general election.