Only four days ago, the Prime Minister could not have been clearer in stating that due process should be followed in an inquiry into the tax affairs of party chairman Nadhim Zahawi.

The swiftness of Rishi Sunak in sacking the party chairman today was an attempt to put the lid on the troubling swirl of allegations surrounding his tax affairs.

Mr Zahawi is unlikely to have been able to weather the storm much longer and his fate was sealed by the damning findings of an investigation by the man appointed to be the PM’s ethics adviser.

The most damaging aspect of this saga for the Conservative party is that it resurrects the issue of ‘sleaze’ that dogged John Major during his spell as Prime Minister.

And it enables critics of the current PM to portray him as indecisive.

Conservative MPs in Kent - even those with huge majorities - may be casting an eye over the electoral arithmetic and beginning to feel slightly less comfortable.

We are nowhere near the party’s meltdown in the Blair landslide of 1997 but party chiefs will be well aware that the public holds particular disdain for politicians who say one thing then do another - or seek to circumvent legislation they impose on others.

The fact that the now-ex chairman of the party appears to have done both won’t go down well in Kent’s Tory shires.