Uppermost in the minds of the 1922 Committee, the body of Conservative backbenchers which drew up the rules for the leadership contest, has been avoiding the extended bout of very public bloodletting that accompanied the run-off between Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss in 2022.

This is, I think, an important reason for the rather unusual shape of the election this time, with the MPs’ voting round split into two and four semi-finalists (out of only six candidates) getting to exhibit at the Conservative Party Conference in October.

Why? Because it is easier to resist “going negative” in a crowded field. Nobody wants to be the first one to break ranks, not least because of the prospect of several different campaigns turning their fire on you in turn. Such temptation gets much harder to resist in the final round, when only one other person stands between you and the prize.

So far, at least, the candidates are behaving themselves, although three months is a long distance over which to test their self-control and we shall see if Bob Blackman, the chairman of the ’22, ever needs to break out his “yellow card” – an as yet unspecified sanction against........

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