“I’m with Jacob Rees-Mogg.” Rosa Monckton says it apologetically, but firmly. “I am very hardline on abortion. Who are we? A life is a life, and life begins at conception.”

The Conservative backbencher Rees-Mogg, sometimes labelled the Honourable Member for the Eighteenth Century but tipped by others as a potential future leader of his party, made headlines recently when he spelled out in stark terms his opposition to abortion in all instances. It was, he explained, what his Catholic faith demanded.