Boris Johnson has this evening pulled out of the Conservative leadership contest, leaving the field clear for Rishi Sunak. Only this morning his MP supporters had been insisting that the former prime minster had secured the 100 MP nominations required and would definitely run, but Johnson says the opposition to him is such that he will not enter the race – but there were severe doubts about this, with some MPs saying they were being approached by a desperate Boris team that did not have the numbers but had claimed otherwise.