Jesse Norman’s departure from the policy board hasn’t come as a huge surprise to many Tory MPs: I was with one after the vote who was subjecting his twitter feed to a lengthy examination to work out whether Norman was stranded overseas. The only evidence available was that Norman went to a beer festival on 26 August and found out about the recall from the BBC and Easyjet. ‘I love beer festivals, but I also know when to turn up,’ grumbled the MP.
It would have been a terrible message to send to other backbenchers if Norman hadn’t been moved from his job. This is a sign of Number 10 applying a bit of an Andy Flower strategy to MPs: and that is a good thing for party management in general. But one Tory colleague I’ve spoken to this morning disagrees.
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