Stewart has declared his intention to run for Tory leader if Theresa May steps down

In his plush new office in the Admiralty building, where Royal Navy chiefs discussed their secret operations for hundreds of years, Rory Stewart wonders what Lord Nelson would have made of the events that elevated him to the cabinet.

The 46-year-old, who intends to run for Conservative Party leader if Theresa May steps down, became international development secretary on Wednesday after Gavin Williamson was unceremoniously sacked as defence secretary following an inquiry into a leak from the National Security Council (NSC).

“We’ve got to reset,” he says in the boardroom where the victor of the Battle of Trafalgar and hero of a thousand pub signs lay in state in 1806, “because otherwise I feel the ghosts all the way round this room thinking, ‘What on