FURY OF HIS SHADOW MINISTER HE TURNED INTO A SWORN ENEMY

WITH the Tories determined to shed the vestiges of their image as the ‘nasty party’, as Theresa May had provocatively put it, Cameron took few prisoners in his first days as leader.

An early victim was his Shadow Homeland Security Minister Patrick Mercer, who was ruthlessly culled for telling a journalist he had met ‘a lot’ of ‘idle and useless’ ethnic minority soldiers who used racism as a ‘cover’.

The former colonel also told The Times that being called a ‘black bastard’ was a normal part of Army life.

Mercer was not condoning the use of such language, and his remark about workshy ethnic minorities sounded far less offensive in the context of the wider interview.

However, Cameron threw him to the wolves, telling Mercer in an exchange that lasted less t han 60 seconds: ‘ You’re relieved of your command, Colonel.’ Many felt it was hasty and unjust.

The following day, the Tory l eader bumped i nto t he man he had just sacked in a Commons corridor.

‘Sorry about that. Thanks for being so decent. Let’s catch up,’ he said, leaving Mercer with the impression that, after a period of penance, he would be brought back into the fold. It did not happen.

Mercer recalls: ‘I waited and waited. It took nine months for him to see me, by which time I was not so easily reconciled.’

During a stormy one-to-one meeting in Cameron’s Commons office, Mercer voiced his anger over Cameron’s handling of the episode.

‘I’ve sacked men myself, and there are good and bad ways of doing it,’ he told Cameron. ‘You’ve risked turning me from a lukewarm but uncritical follower into an enemy. You don’t need to alienate people. We all understand that difficult decisions have to be made.’

Looking back on it now, Mercer accepts that if he had been ‘less angry and more ambitious’, he and Cameron might have found some accommodation. As it was, he became a backbench critic.

It was the first of a number of serious misjudgments that Cameron was to make over his personnel.