In his vindication of Sir Roger Scruton, Douglas Murray quite rightly refers to the affair as ‘a biopsy of a society’. It was also a biopsy of the Conservative party in particular, and a dispiriting one at that. It is notable that while a good slice of the conservative commentariat came to Scruton’s defence, Conservative MPs were conspicuously silent, except for those who rushed to excoriate Scruton. This response was indicative of the gap between the party in the country and the Parliamentary Conservative Party, which has seen an attenuation of the conservative instinct and — as has been argued in these pages — seems bereft of ideas or vision.

It was also the last straw for me personally. I have cut up my party membership card and cancelled my direct debit. It was particularly galling to see the likes of Johnny Mercer and Tom Tugendhat join in with the mob: hitherto I had high hopes of the new generation of military MPs. I understand that moral courage is much emphasised at Sandhurst, but evidently Mercer and Tugendhat were not very attentive students. If moral cowardice is to be as much a hallmark of the next generation of Conservative ministers as it is of the current cohort, there is no point in voting Conservative again.

This letter appeared in this week's magazine