The defection of Sir Jake Berry, a former Tory chairman, to Reform was a genuine shock last night.
As Kemi Badenoch prepared to give a major speech just hours later on welfare reform, it left her looking increasingly lost and irrelevant.
Already, there were questions over why she had chosen today of all days to deliver a major speech when the news was very much focused on migration and the mini summit between Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, who would be grabbing the attention.
But with Sir Jake’s defection, there would only ever be one subject anybody would ask her about at her press conference: “Who is leaving next?”
While he was not the first ex-Tory MP to be converted to Nigel Farage’s cause, he is without doubt the most substantial and significant to do so. And he will not be the last.
He also represented a very different type of Conservative to join Reform. Previously, figures such as Lee Anderson, Marco Longhi, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, David Jones and Anne Marie Morris were all on the hardcore Brexiteer right wing of the party, but that is not the case with Sir Jake.
Last time he spoke to The Independent, he was at the launch event for Tom Tugendhat’s leadership bid. Tugendhat supposedly represented the type of Tories who would rather vote Lib Dem than Farage.
Sir Jake had been a Remainer during the Brexit referendum; he was also a Boris Johnson loyalist and served under Liz Truss. He was essentially a career politician, someone who was an MP for 14 years, sought ministerial office, was not on the right of the party and had been a Tory for 30 years.
His admission, “I know what was wrong, I was there”, as he defected, was a pretty scathing attack on his former party.
A friend of Sir Jake’s messaged The Independent last night to say: “He followed his heart”.
A cynic might suggest that his heart was telling him he wanted to be an MP again, and winning back the seat he lost last year would be more easily achieved by standing for Reform.
But this does mark a significant moment. If Farage is now attracting career politicians and not just the ideologues, then the mood is changing.
Sir Jake’s departure tells people, more than any other defection, that the centre-right party is most likely to win Reform led by Farage. Even Sir Keir Starmer is calling them the real opposition.
That makes the Tories irrelevant and a bit like the Liberals in the 1920s, with the emergence of Labour, look like they are a dying and soon-to-be minor fringe party.
Certainly, it is hard to find a member of Ms Badenoch’s top team in her shadow cabinet or many Tory MPs who are up for the fight. Apart from Robert Jenrick and a few others, not many of them are making headlines.
The snarky response from a CCHQ (Conservative Campaign Headquarters) source to say Berry “had more positions than the Kama Sutra, and is now living proof that Reform will take anyone” has also angered several Tories who are currently wavering about joining Reform.
Sir Jake was well-liked and had founded and led the influential Northern Research Group of Tory MPs.
Another ex-Tory MP messaged The Independent in the wake of his announcement to say they were “close” to defecting too.
They said: “I hate CCHQ with every fibre.”
There is another serious point. Getting people like Sir Jake helps Reform professionalise. He is a very strong campaigner and organiser who can teach them about setting up ground campaigns and using data. Berry brings expertise that is currently lacking in Reform.
Meanwhile, though, as the news agenda goes on to small boats and Farage is parading his latest recruit, nobody really wants to hear a speech by Kemi Badenoch on welfare. Wrong speech, wrong time, wrong circumstances again for a Tory leader who cannot catch a break.