New leader must stem disloyalty

But early indications suggest Boris Johnson (pictured) will be the next incumbent of 10 Downing Street, even though he is conducting what for him is a pretty mute and out of character campaign.

His first job as Tory leader will be to bang a few heads together to achieve that old fashioned virtue of loyalty - the absence of which has so damaged the Tories, and Labour as well, over the past 18 months.

Unless the Tories can show some kind of unity and above all loyalty to their new leader, the party could sink beyond trace.

A lot of Conservatives treated Theresa May very badly indeed over the Brexit wrangles, and Johnson - or whoever it is who succeeds her - will have to put an immediate stop to that kind of disloyal and self-destructive behaviour.

So the work really starts for the Tories when the new leader is in position. They and Prime Minister will have to start banging the table in Brussels far more robustly than has been the case in the past, allowing the EU grandees virtually to walk all over the UK’s arguments.

In the past, the EU bosses were frightened of Margaret Thatcher. That seemed to work. The UK’s new leadership should try that tactic again.

Apart from Johnson, none of the other candidates for the leadership seem adequate to fill the job. So even those who cannot stand Boris Johnson may find him more successful than any of his rivals might be.

- The UK is being forced to pay billions of pounds to the EU for the “pleasure” of leaving the community. Now, shockingly, it is revealed that at least two of the Brussels’ negotiating team are in line for nearly 440,000 pounds in so-called “golden handshakes”.

Already the EU spends money like water and it is an outrage that these people who have done their worst to try to squeeze every drop of blood out of the UK should be rewarded like this with public money.

Indeed, the spending habits of the EU and the fraud which exists in some parts of its member states is a total scandal, which no one seems to address.