The Guardian view on Tory decline: splits, sleaze and a rush for the exit | Editorial

His would-be successors are openly jockeying for advantage in the next leadership contest, with Kemi Badenoch, Penny Mordaunt and Priti Patel all but declared as likely candidates.

Meanwhile, Tim Loughton’s recent decision not to stand again as a Conservative MP brought the list of prospective backbench retirees to 64 and counting.

Nothing, however, illuminates the fin de régime atmosphere surrounding the Sunak Tory party more than another steadily growing list.

The Times newspaper has accused him of misusing campaign funds and demanding thousands of pounds from an aide in what he called “a matter of life and death” to pay off “bad people” who had allegedly locked him in a flat.

The case of William Wragg, another now whipless Conservative, highlighted the security danger from online honeytraps aimed at Westminster.

But both sets of allegations are reminders of the ever-present threat that blackmail can pose to individual MPs and, through them, to the wider working of parliament.