What have Tory leadership candidates been up to?

There is frenetic activity in two corners of the political forest during this normally quiet time of August.

- JOHN RENTOUL

One is around the prime minister, who is not on holiday with his family thanks to riots that have now subsided and who is still finding his feet at the head of a new government.

The other is in the Conservative Party. Not in the leader’s office, as Rishi Sunak still seems to be taking a break. Or in Tory HQ, which is said to be like a “ghost town” although we journalists still receive press releases commenting on anything in the news. Perhaps they are working from home.

But the six candidates to succeed Sunak are working flat out, visiting local Tory associations and phoning MPs. The strange thing is that the race still seems to be wide open, with no clarity over who the final two candidates might be, let alone the winner.

What have the candidates said this week?

Robert Jenrick said he would be “delighted” to have Boris Johnson in his cabinet, when interviewed by The Daily Telegraph. He started the week by saying he had taken Ozempic for six weeks last year to lose weight but “didn’t particularly enjoy it”.