I have a rule — try to resolve matters privately. Public spats are never a good look, either in your private or your professional life. And in politics the art of collective responsibility is the way in which at the highest level, decisions can be made and publicly supported — even decisions that one may fundamentally disagree with.

When I chaired the Conservative Party I was regularly annoyed at the awkward backbencher whose “concerns” about the party I first heard about through the media or on Twitter. That was why I have always chosen to raise concerns privately. I don’t want to wash our dirty linen in public.