What would make things interesting? Rory challenging Boris to pistols at dawn?

Theresa May zoomed down the corridor at breakneck speed, aides trailing in her wake, and bolted into Committee Room 14. She’d come to cast her vote in the ballot to find her successor, and was determined to evade the leering mob of journalists outside. Thirty seconds later, she whooshed out of the room via a different door, and charged back along the corridor.

“Who did you vote for, Prime Minister?” called out a reporter.

“That’s none of your business!” shot back Mrs May, not breaking stride.

You can understand her reticence. Even she must know that whoever she’s backing would be instantly doomed if she let on.

Then again, if she does know that, it’s a surprise she didn’t smile mischievously and say “Boris Johnson”. Yesterday’s ballot of MPS concluded the first round of the Tory

leadership contest. Voting began at 10am. Out in the garishly carpeted corridor, we watched them all troop in. Jacob Rees-mogg, slender and prim, and looking as ever like a furled-up umbrella.

Then Andrea Jenkyns, accompanied by her two-year-old son, who was dressed in shirt and tie for the occasion.

Master Jenkyns, it seemed, had made rather more of an effort than David Davis, who swaggered rakishly around with collar agape, like a medallion man from the Seventies.

Unfortunately Mr Davis had forgotten not only his tie but his parliamentary ID and was told he couldn’t vote until he’d gone back to his office and retrieved it. I know it’s been a while since he quit the Cabinet, but you’d think they might have recognised him.

The candidates all arrived separately. Jeremy Hunt, beaming camply away at everyone like a Blue Peter presenter. Rory Stewart, loitering restlessly in the corridor, tweeting passages of Seamus Heaney, and attempting to win over undecided colleagues by, in his words, “looking deeply into their eyes”. Boris Johnson, shuffling into the room, saying nothing – and then shuffling out again, still saying nothing. (This appears to be his advisers’ strategy for this campaign: play it safe, keep your head down, and issue no comment more contentious than “good morning”.)

At 1pm, the results were announced. Mr Johnson – who wasn’t present to hear them – was streets ahead, while Esther Mcvey, Andrea Leadsom and Mark Harper were eliminated.

Unexpectedly, however, Mr Stewart squeaked through. The former soldier, war zone diplomat and poetry-reciting rambler has led by far the most idiosyncratic campaign, and, true to form, within minutes of the result he was calmly informing Sky News that if Mr Johnson dared force through a no-deal Brexit by shutting down Parliament, he would simply establish his own parliament in the Methodist Central Hall over the road.

I wonder whether Tory MPS are looking at yesterday’s result and thinking: “Well, Hunt and Gove are stuffed. But at least Rory would make things interesting. He might challenge Boris to a duel at dawn, or give a speech written entirely in iambic pentameter.”