Downing Street has Larry the cat; the Foreign Office has rival pussy ­Palmerston, but Theresa May’s chief whip has taken a different approach – he has a tarantula named Cronus for a pet.

Gavin Williamson keeps the one-year-old spider on his desk in the Whip’s ­office, where the eight-legged ­creature regularly ­terrifies MPs into toeing the party line.