Tory MPs must go for substance over style

FOR the avoidance of doubt: The Mail believes this Tory leadership contest should not be happening.

In our view Boris Johnson was and remains the best choice for Prime Minister, and his political assassination shames the tawdry plotters who wielded the knives.

The charge sheet against him was largely trivial and grossly exaggerated by his enemies, choreographed by his malicious former aide Dominic Cummings.

If his MPs had a fraction of the courage their leader showed over Ukraine, he could easily have weathered the storm of confected outrage and continued his mission to make this country a better place.

Instead they suffered a fit of collective hysteria, defenestrating their best electoral asset. A herd of lemmings would have shown a better sense of self-preservation.

On Wednesday, as the pretenders were scrabbling for his crown, he showed why we will miss him so much. In a stellar Commons performance, he made his opponents look small and irrelevant – defusing their puny attacks with his customary wit and flair.

Meanwhile, having shown appalling misjudgment in rejecting Boris, Tory MPs are looking just as clueless in their search for his successor.

An astonishing number have plumped for Penny Mordaunt, with no indication that she would be remotely up to the job. Indeed evidence is mounting to the contrary.

In a devastating critique, her former boss and Brexit champion Lord Frost said he had been forced to replace her because she lacked grasp and application.

Now it emerges she left an earlier job as head of PR at Kensington and Chelsea Council amid claims of incompetence.

There were already concerns over her support for trans rights extremists and external regulation of the Press. Tory MPs should take a long, hard look at her record before convincing themselves she’s capable of running the country.