The thing is, I bet these revelations haven't been suddenly unearthed by the journalists but fed to them by leadership candidate rivals themselves. So they'll have known this dirt but kept quiet about it until it benefited "them".
That seems to be exactly what is happening. Aside from that, there really seems to be enormous animosity in the Tory party between now multiple "stab in the back" myths taking place, a few from David Cameron's people, more from May's and more still from Johnsons. Its hard to see how many of the MPs are not in some way implicated in this, and leave some people in the party feeling they stabbed a leader in the back.
There is now both a clear culture of leeking on one another, and they all have multiple skeletons in the closet. I think Sunak in particular has plenty, and there will be plenty willing to disclose.
For the Tories this feels disastrous. At a time of acute need for the nation, this will be a very bitter fight, and one that will almost certainly continue post September.
For Labour it will be good, but as a country we will have to pay a heavy price for this, and honestly the case for an early election just gets stronger.
