Britain’s Conservative Party faces up to its own mortality

livemint.com:

suspicious bets on a July election just before it was announced; two candidates have been dropped by the party. (Several police officers are also being investigated.) This is misconduct at its most tinpot: risking a career, and increasing the likelihood of electoral annihilation, for the sake of a few hundred quid.Some would rather not fight at all. Top-flight politicians once stuck around, at least for a little while, offering wisdom extracted from their own screw-ups.

But a bunch of Conservative MPs have rushed for the exit. Sajid Javid, a former home secretary, health secretary and, briefly, chancellor, jumped early. Michael Gove, one of the few ministers to have achieved much in office, scarpered when the election was called in May; some pollsters guess that Mr Gove’s seat, also in Surrey, will flip to the Liberal Democrats, just as Mr Hunt’s might.

Leaving may be understandable. It is one thing to spend five years (at least) in opposition; it is quite another to suffer being sacked in a leisure centre at 4am while people cheer your demise. But it is still a shame.

A Conservative Party without Messrs Gove and Javid and their ilk is a worse one.The Tory infantry blame their demise on the idiotic decisions of their senior officers. Voters were appalled when Rishi Sunak skipped part of the D-Day celebrations in northern France to return to Britain for an interview with a broadcaster. It was an achievement of sorts: in an election in which many Britons have tried their damnedest to avoid all political coverage, Mr Sunak’s dash home managed to stir focus groups from their slumber.