‘Nice piece in The Post this morning,’ said Hogarth. ‘Captured the public mood perfectly.’

Thomas agreed. The column had called for a tougher stance on Islamists and migrants.

‘Can’t imagine the PM will have been chuffed,’ continued Hogarth.

He certainly wasn’t, Thomas thought to himself. ‘It needed saying, Lesley. These moments come once in a lifetime and we have to grab them.’

They ordered – he a steak and salad, she monkfish – and got the small talk out of the way. Hogarth brought the conversation back to Thomas’s opinion piece.

‘It’s the crime of the age, offending people,’ she said. ‘We mustn’t offend anyone, must we? Not the gays. Or the blacks. Or the Muslims. Or the vegans. And when the public see their leaders so scared of causing offence that they don’t speak out against the Islamists arguing for Sharia Britain, you can understand why so many people are angry.’

They were silent as the waiter brought the food and Hogarth arranged the vegetables around her plate.

‘One of the things I admire about you, Lesley, is that you value loyalty,’ he said. Hogarth continued to eat, but sat ever-so-slightly more upright, her eyes ever-so-slightly more focused.

‘It’s a trait that seems to have gone out of fashion,’ said Thomas. ‘Take my dad. Extraordinarily loyal man – to my mother, loyal to his friends and colleagues in the pit and loyal to the union. He hated Arthur Scargill, yet he stayed out all through the miner’s strike – right up to the end in March ’85. Absolutely futile. But that stubbornness, that loyalty. I loved that about him.’

‘As you say, Ben, it’s an old-school trait and not many of us have it,’ said Hogarth, who, Thomas noted to himself, had knifed the previous head of her own party to grab power.

‘And I’ve always been loyal to the PM,’ Thomas continued. ‘We’ve had disagreements before, of course. I’d be lying if I said it had all been easy. But I’ve stuck with him and he with me. And yet…’ He trailed off, waiting for Hogarth to pick up the cue.

She did. ‘…And at a time when we need firm leadership and the balls to push through the Freedom Bill, we seem to be lacking it?’ Hogarth toyed with her glass. ‘You know, Ben, the thing about a coalition is that it needs a leader who is prepared to give and take. Every day of a coalition is a negotiation. And there seem to be so many areas of potential common ground between our parties which we are unable to act upon because of the PM’s intransigence.’

Thomas chewed the beef. God, it was overcooked. He’d asked for it bloody.

‘Difficult times call for difficult decisions, Ben. And sometimes we must put aside our ideals for the greater good.’

‘Maybe,’ said Thomas. ‘But it goes against the grain.’

‘Something is changing, we can all sense it out there. People are crying out for change. They want Britain to fight back against all this nonsense. Not just the public. We’re seeing it in the press. The Mail and the Express have turned against the PM. The Telegraph is wavering. There’s growing restlessness on your backbenches.’ She took a swig of wine. ‘And my MPs too. I fear I’m losing them. They want affirmative action, they want strong leadership, they want to end this liberal nonsense that allows Muslims to preach hate in the street and yet which means critics of Islam on Twitter are hounded by the police. They want the pendulum swung back in favour of common sense.’