There was a short letter published in The Times on Saturday which said simply: “It is a shame that the Tory Party members could not see beyond Sunak’s skin colour. They have doomed Britain with an incompetent PM in waiting.”

This has been one of the unspoken questions in the Tory leadership contest between the former chancellor Rishi Sunak, born in Britain into an Indian family that arrived in the UK 60 years ago from East Africa, and the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, who is very much a local girl.

Rishi himself has denied there is any racism in the Conservative Party but then he can hardly make that accusation when he is appealing to between 160,000 and 200,000 paid up members to vote for him as their next leader and prime minister.

Rishi gave an interview to Christopher Hope, associate editor of The Daily Telegraph, who reported to his readers and podcast listeners: “Mr Sunak insisted there was not a race problem in the Conservative Party, citing his own advancement in the party as evidence.”

Rishi told Hope: “Of course not. We are literally living proof that, not just our party is not like that, but our country is not like that.

“It’s one of the most extraordinary, wonderful things about our country that someone like me with my family’s story could even be sitting here having this conversation with you. My grandparents emigrated here 60 years ago. They built a life for themselves.

“I was Chancellor of the Exchequer. I wasn’t even the first ethnic minority chancellor. I was the second in a row (Pakistani origin Sajid Javid). And there’s a third after me (Iraqi origin Nadhim Zahawi). And I’m in a race to be the leader of our party and Prime Minister of our country.”

That’s a fair point except all those appointments were made not by the Conservative Party at large but by Boris Johnson, who, whatever his other faults, ushered in ethnically the most diverse government in British political history.

It may be that although the Conservative Party has changed beyond recognition, its rank and file members have swallowed the propaganda about Rishi’s £500 Prada loafers, his £3,500 bespoke suit, his education at Winchester College, the green card that he and his wife, Akshata Murty, once held, her non-dom status and her Infosys inheritance estimated to be worth £700m.

In brief, Britain’s is perhaps not yet ready for its Obama moment.

Hope acknowledged the point made by Rishi: “There were also no complaints when, as chancellor, he wore the same suit to announce the Treasury’s furlough scheme to pay companies’ employees at the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020, before the cost of living crisis.”

He was then hailed as the Tory party’s “golden boy”.

Rishi remarked a touch, ironically: “When I stood up and announced furlough, which helped millions of people, particularly those on low incomes, I was wearing exactly the same suit that I’m now getting criticism for.

“I’m the same person, right? When I said there is going to be a real problem with energy bills this autumn and I want to make sure that we help particularly the most vulnerable, again, I was probably wearing the same thing because I only have the same suit. Values are what is important, what I’m wearing is irrelevant to all of that.”

The question of Rishi’s ethnicity may have to be left to a post contest analysis. But privately, some Tory Indians do say it has been a factor.

That might be one reason why Tory members have ignored the pro-Rishi advice given by their most senior leaders, the latest of whom is Michael Gove, who is considered one of “the big beasts of British politics”.

Gove has held many senior cabinet posts, including education, and has had a love-hate relationship with Boris. Gove’s wife, the Daily Mail columnist Sarah Vine, had insider knowledge but the marriage ended last year.

Writing in The Times on Saturday, Gove said Truss’s campaign had been a “holiday from reality” and that her tax cuts would put “the stock options of FTSE 100 executives” before the poorest.

“I read, of course, that this election is already decided,” wrote Gove. “A bandwagon is clattering down Whitehall with eager new adherents clambering aboard. The SW1 consensus has already called it. Well, maybe. But I don’t think Conservative members are unduly influenced by whether this or that candidate has run a smarter race by the rules of the Westminster game….And that is why I believe they will vote for Rishi.

“I make my case from my heart too. I do not expect to be in government again. But it was the privilege of my life to spend 11 years in the cabinet under three prime ministers. I know what the job requires. And Rishi has it.”