'Voters are supporting Reform, and those are the people we need to win back. We do that by restoring trust'
As you know, if you have a first past the post electoral system, you need to have coalitions that form the major parties.
Why? Because you have to get the most votes in each individual constituency.
And if you splinter your vote by having purist small groupings, you cannot win. That's the basis of our system. It's the basis of the American system.
That means that both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party historically have been quite broad churches.
They have tended to have pro-Europeans and anti-Europeans, pro free traders, anti-free traders.
But there's always needed to be some fundamental agreement, some unity, some base principle that brings people together, either as a Labour supporter or as a Conservative.
So when a leader purges people, it raises important questions about whether that is narrowing the base of political support for a particular party, or whether somebody has simply gone too far and has broken the code that allows somebody to remain within the party.
There can't be an utter free for all. There can't be an absence of discipline. You can't have people who oppose conservatives when they're standing election or stand for other parties. That's pretty self-evident.
You can't have people who belong to other parties. But at what point does a leader have the right to expel people who have simply been difficult, a bit disagreeable or unsupportive?
Well, I think Kemi Badenoch has got the balance right with the expulsion of Lord Barwell. First of all, he indicated that he thought that she was a liar.
At one point he wants to maintain the net zero policy, and I'm not sure that he's very keen on leaving the European Convention on Human Rights.
The last two are going to be major planks of a Conservative Party manifesto, and the Conservative Party has to regain trust with voters.
And voters think we're wishy washy Lib Dem-ish, and we didn't stand for our principles when we were last in Government. That led to the rise of Reform.
It's led to 25 per cent of voters supporting Reform, and those are the people we need to win back. We do that by restoring trust.
And to restore trust, we have to have the odd Admiral Bing, that is to say, somebody who is shot to encourage the others.
Not that I'm advocating shooting anybody, particularly not in the circumstances in which we live.
But people need to be removed if they are not going to support the major planks of the policy, but those who are willing to support it, even if it's not their first choice, need to be hugged tightly and kept in to the question of balance.
And I'm afraid Gavin Barwell, the Admiral Bing of our time, had to go.
