A rare mood of unity descends on the Conservatives

The idea that ‘loyalty is the Conservative party’s secret weapon’ was always dubious. Benjamin Disraeli, for instance, made his name attacking a sitting Conservative prime minister. This, though, did not stop him becoming arguably the party’s most celebrated leader. But in recent years, the ‘loyalty’ adage has become a joke — one that has taunted leader after leader as they struggled to deal with an increasingly rebellious party.

The party changed leaders four times in the eight years between 1997 and 2005. In these opposition ‘wilderness’ years, changing a leader was the closest to power that Conservative MPs came. Leadership plotting gave an odd sense of purpose to their presence at Westminster.

In this period, few Conservatives could claim that they were blameless: few had been loyal to every leader. Those who had been complicit in the toppling of Margaret Thatcher, a three-time election winner, could hardly preach. But the situation became even more complicated when a Maastricht rebel became leader in 2001. Iain Duncan Smith’s ascent so offended some former whips, normally the guardians of party discipline, that they started to plot against him almost on principle: as a former rebel, they argued Duncan Smith was not owed loyalty.

At the turn of this year, David Cameron was in danger of becoming the latest leader to fall victim to the mutinous nature of the Conservative tribe. His backbenchers were becoming ever more obstreperous and a section of the party was becoming intoxicated by talk of leadership challenges.

First, there was the bizarre Adam Afriyie plot. This never concerned those closest to Cameron much. They viewed the idea of Afriyie as leader as simply too preposterous to catch on and predicted that he wouldn’t survive a serious TV interview.