Tories lose new bastard

The Tories have lost their ultra-rebel: Bob Spink's been chucked out for getting heavy-handed with the Chief Whip:

Spink tried to avoid being deselected by emailing a post-dated letter of resignation on Tuesday night to the Tory chief whip, Patrick McLoughlin - a letter he threatened to activate if the leadership did not support him. Yesterday McLoughlin told Spink he objected to the threat and was withdrawing the whip. Spink can now sit only as an independent MP.

In a letter to Spink, McLoughlin said: "As a matter of good party discipline I cannot have MPs making threats to resign the whip at a time of their own choosing if their demands of the party are not met. I must therefore treat your resignation as taking immediate effect."

Spink, lest we forget, was identified by revolts.co.uk as the new ultra-rebelling a whopping 22 times between the election and the end of last year. No mention of that in the coverage we've seen. And anyway, as revolts.co.uk points out, there's a new ultra-rebel: dinosaur Ken Clarke, who overtook Spink on the inside rail this year thanks to the Lisbon Treaty.