Selections. How activists find themselves crushed by the attritional, grinding juggernaut of the Party machine.

CCHQ itself is also a victim of what it has helped to create. Here’s a way forward that should be acceptable to all.

Johnson’s ministerial appointments

We’ll continue to update this as the Prime Minister fills out the lower ranks of his government.

Henry Hill: What Johnson’s reshuffle means for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland

His appointments to the Territorial Offices are a mixed bag: Cairns is a welcome retention, Jack a bold but possibly risky change, and Smith another letdown for Ulster.

Henry Hill: Hunt pulls Foreign Office support to Sturgeon’s separatist excursions

Also: MPs criticise Foreign Secretary over Ulster veterans; Johnson makes Thomson his Scottish campaign chief; and fierce competition to lead the NIO.

Which MP is backing which candidate. Our named estimates. Johnson 131, Hunt 48, Gove 36, Javid 22

Here’s our best stab at who is voting for whom, and this list will be updated each morning, as the contest continues.

The 75 Conservative MPs who opposed the Prime Minister’s deal

Mostly ERG-aligned Leavers – but roughly ten former Remainers, a core of whom now back a second referendum.

Eustice’s deep consistency. The ConservativeHome article that presaged his resignation.

The logic of his position was that the UK was leaving by March 29th. It hasn’t changed. The Government’s has. So he’s gone.

Don’t blame the A list

It may have produced Anna Soubry – but it also gave us a mixed cross-section of Tories, including Conor Burns, Esther McVey, Priti Patel and Liz Truss.

Andrew Gimson’s Commons sketch: May cannot sell her compromise and centrist MPs are preparing to take over

Power seems to be seeping away from the ancien regime.

Yesterday in the Commons. More opponents than supporters of the Prime Minister’s deal on the Conservative backbenchers.

That said, there was more backing for her from her party than some of today’s headlines suggest.

Operation Gobble. May promotes Leavers within the Government…with an eye on a coming Brexit vote.

Meanwhile, the Government has quietly been appointing more trade emissaries during the last few months.

The first former Remain Minister resigns. Bebb quits to vote against the ERG and the Government.

That’s ten gone from the front bench or CCHQ – and it would be surprising were there not more today.

Robert Courts, Cameron’s successor, is the latest Conservative MP to resign over Brexit

Is the Witney MP’s decision a one-off, or part of a co-ordinated plan – with more to come? Downing Street and the Whips will be searching for an answer.

List of PPS’s

It doesn’t seem to be complete yet, but here are as many of the appointments as have been released to date.

Parliamentary Private Secretaries: full list

Seema Kennedy becomes the Prime Minister’s second PPS. Brexiteer Kwasi Kwarteng is PPS to Philip Hammond. And much, much more.