Abuse is not free speech. Shouting at someone from a short distance is not free speech. Intimidation is not free speech. The treatment of Anna Soubry recently was wrong and not a support for democracy but an attack upon it.

There are a number of areas where Ms Soubry and I do not agree. Europe is the most important and topical, where we are the North and South pole of Leave and Remain.

The fact that we are members of parliament in the same party is a reminder that political parties are coalitions not ideological redoubts and that orthodoxy may take a variety of forms for we are both equal members of the party who coincide in the division lobbies much more often than we