The race to replace Rishi Sunak has begun. Who is in the running?

With an election only a year away, the Tory popularity contest has started in earnest. Sean O’Grady takes a look at the contenders for the top job

Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch is top of the pops in the Tory league table (PA Wire)

Barring some kind of cataclysmic disaster this week, Rishi Sunak seems safe as Conservative leader. Even if he delivers a lacklustre speech, or gets heckled, his position should be assured this close to a general election.

Theresa May, whose cough-addled oration in 2017 was delivered against a disintegrating backdrop and interrupted by a prankster handing her a P45, managed to hang on for another 18 months.

Despite wild talk about votes of confidence, and Priti Patel placing herself at the head of a grassroots “peasants’ revolt”, the prime minister is not likely to be going anywhere quite yet. But that doesn’t mean that others aren’t looking to the post-Sunak future, and going on manoeuvres...