He said that he wanted to speak to young people about “how can we work with them and make sure that they have got the opportunity to support and have the toolkit, through the digital world particularly, to go out there and argue the case about why Conservatives are the right party to offer good opportunities to them and their friends and family in the future.”

He also announced that the party was drafting a “respect code” under which all candidates would pledge to meet a standard of behaviour online, or be suspended. The announcement follows an official report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which warned that candidates in the 2017 election campaign “experienced harassment, abuse and intimidation”.

“I would call on Labour to join us and do that, to stop being silent on this issue and front up and deal with this problem they’ve got,” he said.

Interview

It is not the way the average Tory activist might imagine that their eventual rise to the Cabinet would take place. But Brandon Lewis found himself at the centre of Theresa May’s reshuffle last week – and not just, alas, for the reasons for which he and the Prime Minister may have wished.

Mr Lewis was announced as the Conservatives’ new chairman only after the party’s official Twitter account posted a message announcing Chris Grayling, the Transport Secretary, as the new appointee. No 10 has adamantly denied claims that the tweet was actually a glimpse of an original, ill-fated plan.

In any case, within minutes, political commentators were claiming that the “gaffe” offered a window into a lacklustre approach to the digital sphere that should be the focus of the incoming chairman.

For all his diplomacy, sitting in his new office at Conservative Party headquarters on Friday one might be forgiven for thinking that Mr Lewis privately agrees. Although he is at pains to insist that since the election there has been a “real step change” in the party’s approach to social media, the former immigration minister says “we are looking to expand how we do things digitally”.