More than 500 people queued around the corner for the hotly anticipated proxy EU referendum debate at Tory conference. To their disappointment, the star speaker, Sajid Javid, mysteriously pulled out just hours before the event, citing a “diary clash“. Javid had earlier finished his speech to the conference hall with the slogan: “Standing up to Brussels. Standing up for Business. Standing up for Britain.” He was instead replaced on the panel by the arch-Europhile bore David Lidington, who read out the government’s lines to take.

Sources close to Saj insist it was a “diary issue“. Though given it had been in his diary for three months, a cynic would think someone didn’t want a eurosceptic Cabinet minister addressing a room full of Outers and hacks at this so far very well-behaved conference…