No, no, this is an uncharacteristic mistake. Keir Starmer’s welcoming hand on Natalie Elphicke’s shoulder is a picture his enemies will relish as proof he was never really a Labour man. Where was the steadying hand of a Pat McFadden or Sue Gray to make him stop and think: just say no?

It is easy to see how, in the hectic frenzy of 24-hour Westminster, the astonishing gift of the most comically unlikely MP crossing the floor at PMQs looked irresistible. The wow factor was a great theatrical coup, a sugar-rush of triumph. God knows what’s in it for her; some revenge for an unknown slight? Or a last-minute bid to dissociate herself from her nasty party? Maybe she’s just part of the great chicken run of “gissa job” Tory MPs clambering off before the Tory ship goes under.

The notion that she’s defecting because Rishi Sunak has abandoned the centre ground, as she claimed, is laughable. She belonged to the Common Sense faction of Conservative MPs, one of the most rightwing cabals of culture warriors, chaired by Suella Braverman’s svengali, John Hayes, who would topple over if he moved any further right: fellow members include Jonathan Gullis, Edward Leigh, Andrew Rosindell, Danny Kruger and, formerly, Lee Anderson, until he scarpered to Reform. If she’d brought that whole crew over to crash his party, would Starmer have embraced them too?

Policy discipline has been the hallmark........

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