The Tory leadership race is not just a political battle – it’s religious warfare | Rafael Behr

The party has reached a stage where purity of faith is valued over sound judgment or evidence

The bigger the crisis, the smaller it looks. If the Tories' problems had external causes, some of them might now rise to the challenge. Or even just one, and that person could be the leader. But none can borrow stature from the magnitude of this mess when they all had a hand in making it.

Liz Truss was insubstantial as a leadership candidate and got flimsier in office. The most remarkable feature of her tenure in Downing Street was how much destruction she packed into such a small time. She proved how much power a prime minister can wield, and why anyone aspiring to the job should meet some qualifying threshold of competence, responsibility, sound judgment.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist