Opinion-in-brief: The Tory leadership race is training in the art of scheming
A “dirty dossier” on Rishi Sunak – shared by an ally of Priti Patel – contained lines of attack against the frontrunner in the race to become party leader. One was that Sunak had been plotting this all along – with a campaign website domain registered in 2019.
Sunak’s campaign team has denied owning readyforrishi.com, claiming their actual website was registered the day before Johnson’s resignation. Yet Sunak’s campaign looks so put together that it’s hard to argue he hadn’t been aiming at the top job over the past months.
Liz Truss registered her website at the beginning of June, while Penny Mordaunt registered hers in 2019, when she was defence secretary under Theresa May. Some of the other candidates don’t have their own websites yet.
Some contenders will have been plotting for longer than others; what’s sure is that in what looks like an increasingly bitter leadership campaign, any excuse seems good enough to hit at the next rival.