She’s a playful tiger – claws in or claws out. ‘I first met Kemi in 2008 or 2009 when she had been selected for Dulwich and West Norwood – not long after I’d resigned from the front bench in 2007 [in protest against David Cameron’s policy on grammar schools],’ he says. But by far the most important Tory party member vote she has ever won was that of Hamish Badenoch, a banker who fell in love with her after they became friends during the unsuccessful campaign she ran in 2010 to win Dulwich and West Norwood for the Tories; he leafletted for her with romantic determination.