Why did the Conservatives choose such inexperienced leader candidates? - Bernard Ingham

Yet Tory MPs managed to compile one of the least battle-hardened candidates lists ever presented to their party. Only Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss approach household-name status.

Most of the others still in the hunt or fallen by the wayside have limited experience of Government and Tom Tugendhat none at all.

This does not mean that a relatively junior MP can never succeed.

You never know until they get the top job. Who would have thought in 1975 that Margaret Thatcher, then Education Secretary, would join the elite of British leaders?

Not that experience is any guarantee either.

Look at Anthony Eden.

If anyone were bred for No 10 it was him. Yet he made a horrible mess of the Suez crisis.

All this would be worrying, especially in view of Labour’s lack of talent, if the West as a whole were politically well-endowed.

But the United States is led by a geriatric with anything but a sure grasp of essentials and his likely opponent at the next presidential election – Donald Trump – is an ancient monument to breathtaking egotism and noisy incompetence.

France’s Emmanuel Macron is a bad joke and Germany’s Olaf Scholz a potential disaster. Yet we, the British, have managed to dump Boris Johnson, who stood and stands head and shoulders above the rest.

If the West has any sense left in its body politic, it would examine why this international dearth of leadership has hit us just when we need leaders to stand up to Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. This political poverty has put temptation in their way and Putin, the less subtle, has fallen for it.

It could be that what we are witnessing is the decline and fall of a West grown careless and self-indulgent. We have had it too good for too long and taken our freedom for granted.

Indeed, that freedom has led to abuse that is spawning a totalitarian approach to thought and expression. The Commies’ fifth column – the wokerati – are operating in full sight in most of our once-venerable institutions.

But I suspect it is more complex than that in the UK.

Certainly our elected representatives have been careless of their reputation, ranging from the expenses debacle to regular assorted scandals. This has coincided with a steep fall in respect for authority and a coarsening of behaviour in general.

It may have its roots not simply in politicians’ conduct but because the public expect too much of politicians and too little of themselves. This leads to an endless flow of criticism and even disdain.

It could be argued that the responsible media, as distinct from the fulminations of the Twitterati, contribute to this. An editor’s job is to sell newspapers and bums on seats and scandal always makes for a titillating read.

But the media are one of the checks and balances against abuse by our governors.

At a time when freedom of expression is under severe attack we must be careful not to gag media criticism,

My reservation is the tendency to put great store by quotes culled from deep in the past.

People’s minds do change.

All this may be putting promising talent off a political career. There are more comfortable ways of earning a richer living than seeking election to Parliament.

It does not help that they may well feel they will be fighting the Civil Service instead of relying on it to implement their policies.

Another element in the equation of decline may be the very nature of democracy itself.

The five-year cycle tends to lead to short-termism, even though we know Rome was not built in a day. This demands strong leadership with a longer-term perspective and effective communication of progress to the public.

It follows that Boris Johnson’s successor does not just face an economy ravaged by Covid and the Ukrainian war and a host of pressing social problems from the NHS, social care, education, law and order to immigration linked with housing.

He or she must find a way of building a more disciplined and responsible society that becomes an example to the West. Fingers crossed. The Tory Party must get this right.