Sam Gyimah has played down the local no confidence bid revealed by Guido on Friday night, telling the Today Programme:

“There’s no deselection procedure, there was some news at the weekend… there’s a letter of no confidence that was handed to my association chairman, it’s signed by four people… I think one of them is a lapsed member of the Association…“

Local sources are disputing this, they insist that the letter had five signatories, none of whom were lapsed members. All were members of the Executive, including two local Councillors (one district and one county) and a former Association Treasurer. These are well-established members of the local Party, not fringe members or new members…

The number of signatories to the letter is not of any significance in itself – only two were required to put the motion on the agenda for the AGM. The only number that counts is the number of votes for the no confidence motion later this month…

ConHome’s Mark Wallace reported how frosty the mood was towards Gyimah at the Executive meeting on Friday night, with Gyimah reportedly looking “visibly concerned”. Gyimah himself took a conciliatory tone in response to Guido’s initial report. Interestingly, Brandon Lewis has promised that CCHQ will step in to block the deselection of any Tory MP, provided they back the PM’s deal. Gyimah unequivocally told Today just now that he wouldn’t be supporting it…