A few minutes ago a slightly dishevelled Francis Maude sauntered past Guido, he looks weary and is taking a battering from enemies inside and outside the party. The Mirror front-paged him as a porn baron on Monday in a classic conference spoiler. It gets worse every day as people give up on getting in to the conference – thousand of passes have gone awry. The party chairman is getting the blame and in truth the buck does stop with him. It is never a good idea to humiliate self-important donors who are livid at being kept waiting in a car park.

Talk in the bars is that this could spell curtains for him. Possibly wishful thinking on the part of anti-modernisers for whom he is the iconic hate figure in the new Cameroonie regime. Guido actually feels a little sympathy for him. He gets the blame for every A-list injustice felt by old school Tories. The Tories are due a reshuffle, creating a vacancy at the top of the party might be the catalyst.