On the fringes of cabinet last Tuesday, ministers chatted in hushed tones about Tory mega-donor Frank Hester’s “clearly racist” remarks about Diane Abbott, but concluded that “we’ve got to get the money in”. It took No 10 until the end of the day to condemn his words as “racist and wrong”; Rishi Sunak didn’t comment until prime minister’s questions the next day.
It was not the only difficult moment for Sunak in
