Thanks to their bungled suspension of Parliament, the Tories were forced to hold their annual conference the other week while the Commons was sitting. This meant rationing the number of MPs and ministers allowed to travel to their events in Manchester.

Tory MPs complained this was “unfair” with Conservative Party chair James Cleverly saying, “the bottom line is conference is really, really important” because it lets Tory ministers “interact with our wider membership.”

But here in Manchester it is obvious that ministers want to “interact” with a bevy of corporate lobbyists as much as any “wider membership,” and the Whips Office are granting the special slips required to get leave from the Commons so MPs can hang out with privatizing corporations, arms industry ghouls, and hated disability assessors, Atos.