When does 109 not equal 109? When it is 66.

The new intake of Conservatives is huge. It accounts for almost a third of the entire parliamentary party in the Commons.

Marshalling them, whipping them, even getting to know them is not going to be easy. And there are so many, it would be wrong to treat them as a single homogenous block. Although some of them are trying.

There are two main WhatsApp groups that the newbies are in. “The New Intake” is run by the Tory whips, pumping out instructions about where to be and when. At the end of last week a panicked message was posted by Team Johnson noting that not many had put in to ask a toadying (I mean,