Over the weekend Julie Kirkbride was given, to Guido’s surprise, a half-hearted endorsement by Cameron.  Following on from her brother’s babysitter / company director tale, last night further revelations about another of her siblings benefiting from the taxpayers’ largesse made her position look impossible.  Theresa May on yesterday’s Newsnight carefully avoided giving Kirkbride any kind of endorsement.  Paul Waugh’s story about her sister being on the payroll a hundred miles away from her constituency and Westminster is surely the final straw.   Thousands of her constituents have signed a petition demanding she go.

She has gone to ground and is in hiding from her own voters.  She is putting the phone down on callers – even her local radio station has had the phone put down on them live on air.  Bricks have even been thrown through the window of the local Conservative Association office.

This morning after polling 1,144 ConservativeHome readers in their monthly members’ survey yesterday it emerged that 81% of party members think Julie Kirkbride should go.  She is deservedly finished.