The model Tory

A few weeks ago, Johnny Mercer spoke in Westminster on the future of conservatism. At the end, the audience was asked by the host who should be the leader capable of delivering all this and a voice from the back shouted: ‘Johnny!’ It was his wife, Felicity. She’s not alone in her admiration. Throughout parliament, there’s talk of Brexit having been messed up not just by Theresa May but a whole generation of career politicians. So perhaps, it’s argued, the new leader should be from a younger generation, with a very different CV. Someone who can make inexperience into a virtue.

This 37-year-old former army captain might not be running for the job — ‘It’s not a position you self select to’ — but he certainly hits the right notes. He openly despairs about the current state of the government and predicts that if the Tories go into an election now, calamity will follow. ‘The party will get wiped out,’ he says. ‘We’ll get top-sliced and bottom-sliced by those who don’t want any Brexit — and those who want a Ukip version of Brexit. We’ll just get left behind and Jeremy Corbyn will be prime minister.’

He likes to do things differently, and initially suggested doing-the interview while running along the river. I politely declined, so instead he just met me in his running gear. He has always gone against the Tory grain. He won his seat (Plymouth Moor View) from Labour in 2015 with no help at all from the central Tory machine. He has openly criticised his party’s policies on areas ranging from welfare to veterans’ rights. A few months ago, he made headlines for calling his own government a ‘shit-show’.