He is worried about party member’s backlash. Johnson still has some following in that area. I seem to remember the last poll putting Johnson’s fanbase at around 20% in the Tory party. They have their backs to the wall in the next GE. Every vote will count. This is why Labour forced a division, which meant Tory MPs had to have their vote recorded over the anonymity of a vocal vote.

Condemming Johnson would mean Sunak would have to do something.

Imagine you have two aresholes. Not you personally, we’re talking about people who happen to be arseholes. Now imagine one of them is finally, unambiguously, unequivocally revealed to be an arsehole. The other arsehole might not want to throw stones on the basis that deep down inside they know that they, too, are an arsehole who just hasn’t been revealed as such yet. It’ll come. They know it will, eventually. So they don’t want to make too big a deal of castigating the one who has been found out because they know it will ultimately come to bite them on the arse. Hole.

Johnson now has a big megaphone in his DM column that points directly at the remaining Conservative voters. If Sunak displeases Johnson then he’ll stop drivelling on about diet pills and start lobbing hand grenades.