Rishi Sunak thinks Boris Johnson goofed badly when he conspiring to upend Commons standards procedures and agrees with his colleagues in ‘red wall’ seats that this appeared to place the government on the side of a privileged elite.

That is certainly the standard interpretation of his comment this week that the government needed to do better – and indeed unattributable briefings by an ally say that he regarded the episode as a ‘mistake’ which should be acknowledged by someone of cabinet rank.