In the dying days of Theresa May’s benighted premiership I spotted a long-serving Tory MP on the same weekend train as me, a few rows down. This old whips office hand had naturally bagged a table of four for himself and spread out documents and newspapers across it to deter all-comers. But he seemed most focused on a smaller piece of writing paper on which he periodically scrawled a note. After a few minutes he got up and headed to the buffet car so I did what most of those trained in my trade would have done in the circumstances and sauntered past his vacated table to take a sneaky look. The notepaper was his own House of Commons headed variety and contained a list of about 20 Tory MPs. At the top was one name underlined twice: Liz Truss.
A couple of weeks later Ms Truss caused a media stir by letting it be known that she was minded to stand in the leadership contest to replace Mrs May.
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