Boris is settling in as a sideline sniper, with Sunak in his sights

Editorial: Despite an extraordinary war of words, Rishi Sunak is quite right to sense that the country doesn’t wish to relive those lawless, feckless, reckless days. Integrity matters and someone has to speak up for it

Rishi Sunak has dug into the Tory civil war by accusing Boris Johnson of asking him to take action that ‘wasn’t right’ in discussions of the former prime minister’s honours list (PA)

Rightly, Rishi Sunak has decided to defend himself against the torrent of abuse, half-truths and unfounded conspiracies spewed out by Boris Johnson and his few remaining outriders in recent days.

In a short digression during his turn at London Tech Week, the prime minister did not hold back: “Boris Johnson asked me to do something that I wasn’t prepared to do because I didn’t think it was right. That was to either overrule the Holac [House of Lords Appointments Commission] committee or to make promises for people. Now, I wasn’t prepared to do that. I didn’t think it was right, and if people don’t like that, then tough.”

Harking back to his pledge to bring integrity, professionalism, and accountability into government, Mr Sunak went on to explain that he wanted to do things differently because he wanted to “change politics, and that’s what I’m doing”.