There was a time they bonded over the Queen, their distaste for the burka, and those special feelings they had about Margaret Thatcher that no one else would understand.

But the bromance between Cory Bernardi and his former leader Tony Abbott is over, collapsed in the dust of an argument over who is a true conservative, and sadly Sir Robert Menzies is no longer with us to adjudicate.

Some might judge that a lame basis for what would almost certainly be called a bitchfight if it were two women involved – but those people have not read enough David Hume and should be quiet.

The broken bromance, the human wreckage of Bernardi's split with the Liberal Party, has come out of nowhere for those of us who remember the time Cory helped kill off Coalition support for Kevin Rudd's emissions trading scheme and install Tony Abbott as leader over a leftist Malcolm Turnbull.