Portillo approaches the Tory party as a joyrider approaches someone else’s car

The manner in which Iain Duncan Smith turned and faced his tormentors on Tuesday was reminiscent of the bravery shown by Prang, a bull terrier kept by his father while serving in India with the RAF after the second world war. The Conservative leader recently related how his father saw Prang deal with the danger of being torn limb from limb.

Early one morning, he was taking Prang for a walk, and the dog was running on ahead. Then my father heard the sound of hunting horns, and a pack of hounds came streaming over the hill ahead of the hunt. They were big animals, because they hunt jackals in those parts. The hounds caught the scent of the bull terrier and came charging towards him. Father ran to try to intervene, but couldn’t make it. Prang saw the hounds hurtling towards him but, whereas most dogs would have run, he just turned slowly so that he was facing them head-on. Everything about him, my father said, was rock-still except for his tail which just twitched from side to side. When the hounds got to him, it was like waves hitting a rock. They didn’t go for Prang; they just circled him. Father said Prang’s eyes followed each of them as they went past. He was just waiting for the first one to make a move, and saying: ‘Come on, then, be my guest. Who’s the first?’ By being determined and unafraid, he survived. Eventually the huntsmen arrived and called the hounds off. One of them said: ‘Thank God your dog didn’t run.’ Father said: ‘He never would.’ The point my father was making in telling me the story was: always stand your ground.