Graham Brady The Grandee Everyone's Watching

Graham Brady once quipped that his pile of letters calling for a vote of no confidence in the prime minister always had "an element of traffic in both directions ...

- Jessica Elgot

It isn't like a thermometer outside the local hospital showing how much money has been raised".

The MP for Altrincham and Sale West - the "shop steward" for Tory MPS-may yet become the first chair of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tories to oversee two votes of no confidence, having chaired the committee for more than a decade.

If the threshold of 54 letters is reached this week, the timing of an announcement is up to him. He must also be confident of the letter-writers' intentions. In 2018, he said that letters were still being submitted and withdrawn on the eve of Theresa May's no-confidence vote, but he judged the threshold had clearly been breached.

Even then, mindful of his image as a paragon of discretion, he did not disclose to May exactly how many letters over the threshold it had gone when he phoned her just after 9.30 in the evening, the day before the vote would take place.