Commons action was last night dominated by the government proposal to ban MPs from the estate once charged with violent or sexual offences. An amendment tabled by Jess Phillips and Wendy Chamberlain to shift the ban to the point of arrest rather than after charges have been laid, won by a razor-thin margin of one, at 170-169. Whipping for house business is light by convention – though yesterday on the Tory side it was non-existent…

Tory whips failed to tell their MPs who were in the chamber to vote that they wouldn’t have any tellers and that they wouldn’t be doing any whipping. Guido hears that for at least 15 minutes chief whip Simon Hart was left without his deputy and lost control. A group of Tory MPs is now pointing out the situation was so bad that Labour – if their whips had rounded people up and exploited the situation – could have passed a vote of no confidence in the government…

Multiple MPs and a minister describe the situation to Guido as a “sh*tshow”, with Sunak’s backbench parliamentary enforcers noticeably absent of late. Simon Hart was always chief whip in name only…