Battle rages between Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak for credibility and loyalty
- Published
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak served as Boris Johnson's Chancellor in 2020
This is a battle for attention, credibility and loyalty.
A battle between Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson, a battle electrified by the words of them both on Monday.
Mr Johnson is the master attention grabber.
But what about credibility and loyalty?
Mr Sunak's intervention was uncharacteristically blunt and sought to make a moral argument and contrast with the prime minister before last.
Mr Johnson accused him of "talking rubbish".
But it is worth examining the substance of Boris Johnson's claim.
It takes us into the weeds of the procedure for being nominated for a seat in the House of Lords, but it matters for his credibility.
"To honour these peerages it was not necessary to overrule HOLAC - but simply to ask them to renew their vetting, which was a mere formality," Mr Johnson said.
HOLAC is the House of Lords Appointments Commission.
But both the Cabinet Office and the former Conservative leader Michael Howard have said publicly this is nonsense.
Lord Howard, who once sacked Boris Johnson for lying, said the former prime minister's claim was "simply not true".
Lord Howard used to sit on HOLAC, so he has a decent claim for saying he knows what he is talking about.
And then there is the Cabinet Office.
A spokesman told the BBC: "HOLAC did not support the nominations of the MPs put forward by the former prime minister. It is unprecedented for a sitting prime minister to invite HOLAC to reconsider the vetting of individual nominees on a former prime minister's resignation list. It is not therefore a formality."
In other words, they claim Boris Johnson is talking drivel too.
I've been in touch with Mr Johnson's team on this. They haven't yet called me back.
What is impossible to dispute, though, is the rage from Mr Johnson and his allies who feel incredibly badly done by.
Nadine Dorries has written in the Daily Mail, external about the "sinister forces" that stood in the way of her peerage. She is pointing the finger at Rishi Sunak and his team.
Rishi Sunak: "Boris Johnson asked me to do something that I wasn't prepared to do"
Could the wider government machine have done more to help them understand the process?
Absolutely, Ms Dorries insists.
Mr Johnson has also lashed out at what he sees as the "kangaroo court" of the Privileges Committee.
The committee's report - due on Wednesday - is sufficiently devastating to the former prime minister's reputation that he walked away from Parliament before, he anticipated, MPs and voters might force him to.
Within government, there is a seething anger: an anger at what some see as classic slapdash Boris Johnson not checking procedures properly, an anger that he keeps changing his story, an anger at the Conservative self destruction.
Which brings us back to the battle for credibility and loyalty.
This has always been about more than honours - it is about what it means to be Conservative.
What the party has achieved - and failed to achieve - during a long period in office. What it should focus on now, and whether Rishi Sunak is a winner.
Who to believe, who to be loyal to.
Mr Johnson has left Parliament but has not left the stage.
His capacity for destruction is live. "I'll be back," he tells the Express., external
And so Mr Sunak is now having to remake that case - that he deserves attention, credibility and loyalty - to his party, and the wider country.
The evidence suggests he willing to do it robustly.