THE end of Boris Johnson's leadership must be followed by a period of political stability, according to Gwent's only Conservative MP.

Monmouth representative David Davies did not join calls for Mr Johnson to step down as prime minister but expressed regret on Tuesday the ongoing leadership crisis had forced the resignation of cabinet ministers like Welsh secretary Simon Hart.

Speaking to the Argus after Mr Johnson's intention to resign was announced, Mr Davies said the prime minister's decision was the correct one.

"You can’t do the job if you don’t have the support of your ministers and cabinet ministers - it’s absolutely unsustainable," he said.

Mr Johnson's government has been hit with a flurry of flashpoints in recent months, most recently allegations about the conduct of MP Chris Pincher, who has been suspended from the Tory Party.

Mr Davies said recent pressures "came to a head because of the incident with Chris Pincher" but acknowledged "there was a feeling prior to that that there had been mistakes".

"But you can’t ditch a prime minister at the drop of a hat," he said, citing Mr Johnson's 80-seat landslide victory in the 2019 General Election, when the Tories' "Get Brexit done" slogan won over voters in Labour strongholds.

On Tuesday, Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer welcomed the prime minister's intended resignation as "good news for the country", and Mr Davies said he agreed "oddly enough".

"There’s a lot of instability in the country," he said. "We’ve got a war going on, we still haven’t really come completely through the Covid pandemic, we’ve got a very dangerous situation going on in Ukraine.

"You can’t really have instability politically when you’ve got problems like that. In that sense, I’m afraid yes, on this rare occasion Keir Starmer is right. We have to have stability in the country, politically, and we haven’t had that."

A leadership contest is likely to follow Mr Johnson's expected departure, and while the Monmouth MP would not be drawn into naming names, he said he would back "the person who can demonstrate an ability to bring the party and the country back together".

"What I really don’t want to see is one person with a whole lot of enthusiastic followers slagging off a load of other people and turning it into some kind of a circus," Mr Davies added.

"I think what we need is mature, dignified leadership, and whether they’re from the so-called left, the right or the centre, I don’t care. The quality that I would look for is being able to bring a period of stability, of calm, mature governance to the country, and that’s what people need."

Would he consider throwing his hat into the ring, the Argus asked.

"Absolutely not, I’d hate the job," Mr Davies replied, adding that he feared a "brief honeymoon period" for Mr Johnson's successor would quickly be followed by attacks from "Twitter mobs" and "sections of the media" and "eventually we’ll have the same thing again".

The Monmouth MP said it was "a bit early" to say whether Mr Johnson's intention to stay on as prime minister until the autumn was the right decision.

"I think the parliamentary party will want to express a view on that, and I’ll be interested to see what that view is," he said. "I think at the very least the parliamentary party will want it set in stone."

But a general election would be best avoided, Mr Davies added.

"What the country needs is a bit of stability," he said. "We’ve had so far three general elections in six years. I’m not sure a fourth general election is the answer. We should be having them about once every five years, not once every two years."