Henry Zeffman

If you're anywhere near that kind of zone, where there'd be lots of talk of there being a split on the right, broadly speaking, people have arguments about the extent to which reform is a party of the right, but if we use that as a shorthand, what are the Conservatives...

in that scenario particularly if they were behind reform in the polls willing to entertain and what goes on in terms of potentially you know are there those who would advocate some sort of some sort of arrangement where it comes to where you're going to stand versus not is all of that pushed to one side and just looked at in the light of a election result and we might get the further iteration if you like of this dilemma that the

Conservatives in particular and to an extent reform might feel with the results of some of the English local authority elections where you could get in microcosm that situation playing out.

Would the parties be willing or not to work together?

So there's a broader point I'll come to, but Henry should first share.

You got wind of this, didn't you, in a specific, in terms of the other day?

And this is not a one-off.

I think he is doing quite a lot of work alongside Camille Badenoch, and she reveres his expertise.

And there are some within the party who would love to see him play a more prominent role.

So the current leader of the Conservatives in the House of Lords is going to retire in the summer.

I wonder what might happen there.

I don't know.

I genuinely don't know how that might shake out, but I think it is one to watch.

And from David Cameron's perspective, here is someone whose time as Prime Minister came to a premature conclusion after the Brexit referendum, whose time as Foreign Secretary came to a premature conclusion because the election happened six months earlier than it might otherwise have done.

In fact, I heard whispered afterwards, he was on a tour, a tour of South America, actually, including, I think, a trip to the Falkland Islands as foreign secretary.

I think he might have been in Paraguay when there was that moment with Rishi Sunak getting a rather damp suit.

I got a damp suit that day as well.

And the story that was told by some was that, you know, if you were foreign secretary in the sort of 1850s and you were in Paraguay, you could probably carry on being foreign secretary for the next six months.

without realising that your party's lost the election.

And you sail into Southampton to be told, ah, no, no, you're not the Foreign Secretary anymore, and you haven't been since July of last year.