The mayoral elections demonstrated that there is a way to win for a Conservative. This is to make out that you have nothing to do with the Tories.

Of the metro mayorships that were up for grabs, just one has been bagged for the Conservatives. The re-election of Ben Houchen in Tees Valley is being used as a human shield by Rishi Sunak to fend off any attempt to depose him from Downing Street. He’s relying on this sole glimmer of cheer for his party to convince it that a disastrous general election defeat is not inevitable and to blunt the daggers of those in his own party who want him gone.

Yet Downing Street can’t credibly claim this rare win as a vote of confidence in Mr Sunak and his government when the Tees mayor put a million miles between himself and Number 10. He ran, not as a Tory, but as “Ben”. His campaign literature treated the prime minister as a non-person and he even “forgot” to wear a blue rosette at his count. One lesson of his victory is that your best hope of succeeding as a Tory is to pretend not to be one. Another moral is that it helps to have a strong personal brand. Which doesn’t flatter Mr Sunak either, because it draws attention to his lack of one.

Those Tories who want him out of Number 10 have always reckoned that this week would be their best opportunity to try to defenestrate him. Their slogan might be: “Do or Die”. At the time of Boris Johnson’s enforced removal from Downing Street, he made a rueful reference to the instincts of “the herd”. The hope among the plotters is that the panicked beasts of the Tory Serengeti will trample Mr Sunak underfoot.

Against them stand the prime minister’s residual allies and apologists who have been trying to tranquillise the herd with the argument that a coup attempt would be utter madness whether it failed or succeeded. Their slogan might be: “Do and die even more horribly”. It is not that they disagree that Tory prospects look dire. What they fear is that a bid to depose Mr Sunak would make their party look even more absurd than it does already. “We’d be taking the piss out of the public,” says one........

© The Guardian