Mr Cameron and his colleagues may wish to pose as robust Conservatives by talking tough on the Human Rights Act and sending a handful of our remaining Tornados – at £1 million a mission – to lob £100,000 missiles at the odd black-flagged Toyota pick-up truck. But what too many disaffected Tories cannot forget is all those years when, after Mr Cameron became their leader, his only desire seemed to be to create what I called a “Not the Conservative Party”. He imagined that he could woo the Lib Dem centre ground by espousing green garbage and political correctness, while reversing pretty well every core principle his party once stood for. Appropriately, his reward was to find himself having to form a coalition with the Lib Dems themselves, shoulder to shoulder on everything from wind turbines to gay marriage. Theresa May may be trying to position herself as the “heir to Mrs Thatcher”, but it was she and her Lib Dem colleague Lynne Featherstone who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to get gay marriage on to the statute book.