It’s a fun night on Tory WhatsApp tonight. Sir Simon Clarke – a cabinet minister under Boris Johnson and Liz Truss – has tonight issued a call in the Daily Telegraph for Rishi Sunak to resign. But over on the Tory WhatsApp group of MPs, there is little sign that the parliamentarians are bolting just yet.

Jackie Doyle-Price, a stalwart supporter of Liz Truss, was first to row in, writing on the group that the ‘one thing that the public expects of a Conservative government more than anything else’ is ‘behaving like grown ups.’ Noting that ‘the best thing any of us can do about tonight’s report is not engage with it’ she continued ‘for heavens sake, we are engaged in military action.’

Next up was Steve Brine who replied succinctly ‘indeed’ before Bob Seely who opined he was ‘bored of divisive crap’ and said ‘to those who wanna do this: get a bloody life.’ Elliot Colburn added ‘absolutely’ before Andrew Percy fired off a paragraph ‘I asked to be added to this group because of what I saw coming tonight… we are months from an election. The idea another leadership psychodrama will help any Tory MP is for the birds! For FFS!’

Elsewhere, some MPs preferred to go public with their defence of Sunak. Priti Patel wrote on Twitter/X that ‘Engaging in facile and divisive self indulgence only serves our opponents, it’s time to unite and get on with the job.’ Public displays of loyalty is one thing – but will the letters in private go in?