On most philosophical scales, Ms Elphicke is closer to Attila the Hun than the late Roy Jenkins. Even Mickey Rourke’s plastic surgeon might baulk at such a transplant

WESTMINSTER’S latest defection was done with a minimum of theatre. What a peculiar, halfhearted affair it was.

Two minutes before noon the trenchantly Right-wing MP for Dover, Natalie Elphicke, walked towards the gangway on the Labour side. Those of us in the press gallery presumed she wanted a word with some Labour acquaintance. But no.

She actually seemed to be hunting somewhere to park her bones. She could have been asking if an unoccupied midrow seat at the cinema was free. Slender Ms Elphicke glided past several knees and took the empty place.

A shake of the mane. A forced smile. She had crossed the floor of the House.

In the process she only made her former Conservative colleagues cross their eyes with puzzlement, surprise and unease. We were nearing the end of Welsh Questions. Nothing newsworthy ever happens in Welsh Questions!

Rishi Sunak was next to the Speaker’s Chair, saying hello to his troops, when he spotted that familiar face of Ms Elphicke on the Labour benches. He peered at her a bit, perhaps wondering if he needed to go to Specsavers.

Penny Mordaunt had clocked the defection and strode up to Mr Sunak to whisper in his ear. Yes, that really was Ms Elphicke on the ‘wrong’ side of the chamber. The PM did well not to kick the dust in frustration. One sensed he was a bit deflated by this development.

When Sir Keir Starmer confirmed that Ms Elphicke had indeed been rebadged as a Labour MP, the Government’s Chief Whip Simon Hart gave a ‘ you’re welcome to her’ laugh. On most philosophical scales Ms Elphicke – a 3rd XI clubber of the ball – would be closer to Attila the Hun than the late Roy Jenkins.

This switch was as unlikely as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Two irreconcilables were uniting for purposes of political contrivance.

Ms Elphicke’s Labour comrades did not look universally thrilled. I saw only three of them – Sir Keir, Angela Rayner and Newport West’s Ruth Jones – shake her hand.

Tory MPs were bemused. Attorney- General Victoria Prentis, who had done up her hair like a widowed 1940s Parisian grand-dame complete with jewels, let her mouth swing open.

The Scotland secretary, Alister Jack, watched the defector with a melancholy, analytical gaze.

Many reverted to mobile telephones, seeking a reason

for this defection. None was evident. That will not stop speculation about a peerage or some quango seat.

It will not stop suspicions that politics is a steeplechase of vanities where ruse and manoeuvre trump truth.

There was little sense of betrayal on the Government side. The news was too fresh, maybe too odd, for that.

NATALIE Elphicke join labour? You might as well graft a lemon to a laburnum or mate tapir with turtle – interesting scientific experiment but little likely to work. Even Mickey Rourke’s plastic surgeon might hesitate before such a transplant.

Yet there sat Ms Elphicke among her new tribe, an expression of blithe indifference on her trim chops, an airhostess scarf around her neck as she soaked up the sunrays of everyone’s attention.

Mr Sunak, already suffering from a summer cold, had an indifferent outing. Sir Keir crowed about the defection but could have made more of it.

Maybe it all happened quite late. Maybe she was what Cold War spy chiefs called ‘a walk-in’, when a dissident strolled into the embassy unannounced.

Of last week’s jumper Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) there was no sign. Saltmines job, maybe. Will we ever again see Ms Elphicke? Will next week bring another deserter?

Tory MPs started to leave well before the end of PMQs. When Speaker Hoyle called time, Ms Elphicke rose nonchalantly and went up to her new party leader.

Sir Keir placed a finger to her right shoulder for half a second then pulled it away, as though he had just touched a hot hob.

He and she ambled out of the chamber alongside one another but smalltalk eluded them.