For David Cameron, there were two types of politician. Team players. Or tossers. Although he preferred a slightly saltier description for the latter type.

For a year I was the member of his team whose principal job was tosser-hunter. As government chief whip between 2014 and 2015 I was responsible for maintaining parliamentary discipline, unity and cohesion. I wasn’t a roaring success.

I was in a swimming pool on holiday in France when the news broke that our Clacton MP Douglas Carswell had defected to Nigel Farage’s Ukip. Far from proving a George Smiley whose formidable intelligence skills had smoked out a double agent, I was proving to be more of a Mr Barrowclough from Porridge, the prison warder easily outwitted by the lags I was supposed to be supervising.

The contrast with the grip, and ruthlessness, displayed by Kemi Badenoch and her treatment’s pre-emption and smoking out of Robert Jenrick’s defection couldn’t be greater. Rather than being blind-sided by events, they controlled them. Instead of debility, they displayed strength.

When defections occur there is an immediate escalation of concern that where one has led, others could follow. So in that summer of 2014 I was charged with tracking down anyone tempted to join Douglas. His closest pal in parliament was the Rochester MP, Mark Reckless, just as hardline a eurosceptic, just as rebellious a spirit. We didn’t place a mole in his office, monitor his photocopier or have a watcher outside his office. Instead, in the true Tory spirit, I took him out for a slap-up lunch.

Mark was fidgety, nervous and sweaty throughout the meal. But then that was his natural mode. With all the subtlety of Harriet from The Traitors I asked him direct if he was planning to defect. He assured me had no intention of ratting. While avoiding my gaze and staring straight at the plate in front of him. At the end of our lunch I moved to pick up the bill. Mark insisted on paying his full share. Deeply atypical behaviour for any Conservative MP at the time. While he might be able to dissemble, just, he couldn’t bring himself to accept a freebie. It was........

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