Sir Nicholas Soames is wearing skull-and-crossbones braces along with his checked shirt, pink socks and shooting tie. “I have nine different colours,” he says. “I’m now a rebel so I’m officially entitled to wear pirate gear.”

The former defence minister and grandson of Winston Churchill is a stiff-upper-lip traditionalist who once went campaigning on his horse and tells us his favourite recipe for grouse. But he admits that he shed a tear this week when he was told that he had lost the Conservative whip for rebelling over a no-deal Brexit after 37 years as an MP. “I did blub actually, it was a sad moment. I was very emotional. I don’t want to end like this particularly as I am so far from being