Just catching up with some of the comment pieces of this week, an extraordinary anecdote caught my eye, somewhat buried inside a column by the Independent‘s Michael Brown, the former Tory MP. Brown says this of his old friend David Davis:

Something odd has happened to the former Tory leadership contender over the past two years. Last year I was interviewed, on Mr Davis’s regional Yorkshire BBC TV news programme, on the occasion of the anniversary of his bizarre 2008 by-election. I said that he was an outstanding shadow home secretary and should have remained in his post but I was rebuked by an astonishing text message from him. “If ever I need help, remind me not to ask you. Goodbye.” Such is how a 40-year friendship in politics and journalism can end when apparently thwarted ambition, ego and vanity turn to bitterness.

Ouch.

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