David Cameron’s greatest strength is that he doesn’t believe in anything

You would think that spending time in America and thereby enjoying a ringside seat as the Republican party leaps off a cliff would give any British conservative cause to give thanks for the Tory party’s essential moderation. Not so with dear old Tim Montgomerie, however, who appears to have gone off his rocker and resigned from the party.

Now there is something to be said for hacks not being members of any party and in that respect Tim’s decision to abandon the Tory ship is a case of better-late-than-never. On the other hand, this is a man who once served as Iain Duncan Smith’s chief-of-staff and there is something quixotic about surviving that experience only to abandon ship when the party is actually in government and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

Still, we’ve all had weeks when we’ve struggled to think of a column.

Tim is, I should say, a thoroughly decent cove and he was kind enough to punt some work my way back when he was comment editor of The Times.