What does it take to make a Tory?

On the Rees-Mogg scale of slappably smug pitilessness where ten is a creature that can be loved only by a Nanny on bonus and zero is Marcus Rashford, where might we place the Tory MP who casually suggested that the unemployed should be sterilised – presumably at their own expense – and who imparted the peculiar wisdom that feeding children is a bad idea because it is likely to increase dependency – presumably on food? I have eleven! Do I hear twelve? I think we can agree that the scale may need to be recalibrated to accommodate Ben Bradley.

Leaving aside for the moment the abhorrent vacuum where human empathy should reside – we’ll come back to this once I’ve scoured the thesaurus for appropriate adjectives – I have questions. How does a person like Ben Bradley get to be a person like Ben Bradley? How do we explain such…