One of the ways being Prime Minister is not like most other jobs is that he or she is not allowed simply to resign and walk away. Legally, the Prime Minister is a part of the Privy Council and serves in that role at the pleasure of the monarch, and so while they can offer their resignation, they cannot simply walk away.
The reason for this is that there must always be a government. Which means that while the horror show of the Tory leadership contest is ongoing, Boris remains Prime Minister, and his various ministers and other sycophants retain their roles. (It's also why Gordon Brown remained Prime Minister in 2010 while the Tories and the Lib Dems finalised their coalition agreement, and indeed why our MPs stop being MPs while an election is ongoing but our PM does not stop being the PM.)
And the reason we must always have a government is that at any time a crisis may occur that requires immediate action. The country cannot be paralysed while a pandemic hits, or if we are plunged into war.
Or while there's a cost of living crisis rapidly blowing up in all our faces.
When government ministers claim that they cannot take action until a new PM is elected and in place, they are talking unmitigated rubbish. They is precisely what the government is there for.
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