Cameron's position at the helm looks more uncertain as each day passes

The word “liar” has been bandied about, while insults have been hurled back and forth in a manner you’d find hard to believe among people who had always been regarded as close friends.

Even Steve Hilton, who was the Prime Minister’s former adviser, as a close ally, has come out in favour of Brexit, and been critical of his former boss’s conduct of the Remain campaign.

Cameron says the party will easily be able to return to its traditional unity once the EU referendum campaign’s over – but how can he be so sure?

The deep-seated nature of the insults that have been flying around makes it virtually impossible to my mind to achieve a 100% rapprochement. ‘Kiss and make up’ does not always work.

But it might well not be David Cameron who will have the task of restoring unity to this badly fractured party.

The June 23 referendum could be followed by a vote of no confidence, which could well and truly see him hiring a pantechnicon to shift his furniture out of 10 Downing Street.

In short, the Conservative Party is in a complete shambles, while David Cameron’s position at its helm looks ever more unstable as each day passes.

Brexiteers suspect Cameron’s efforts to get reforms for Britain from the EU were at best half-hearted, that no one in Brussels seriously listened to him, and that he came away with nothing, despite his claims to the reverse.

Whatever the outcome, this whole sad saga will leave a nasty taste in the mouth for years to come.

And the Tory Party will never be the same again.

• Politicians invariably say they listen to what voters have to say. That may be true, but that is a long way from saying that they act on what they hear.

Politics is not often discussed in public houses, but even so, if an MP walked into a few pubs, he would be assailed by questions on why we give so much away in foreign aid, while here at home, we are constantly reading stories of how the NHS cannot afford to prescribe certain drugs.

The astonishing fact is that the UK spends almost twice as much of its national wealth on this ‘generosity’ than other major nations.

It is all very well saying this is an act of humanity towards the starving millions in many parts of the world. But the fact remains that great swathes of this cash are sent abroad totally unmonitored and, in many cases, does not reach the people for whom it’s intended.

It is a known fact that some money ends up in the pockets of ruthless warlords, and is used by oppressive regimes to buy arms to use against their own people.

The UK’s aid budget has risen 144% in a decade. No wonder British taxpayers, and notably those who are denied NHS drugs they badly need because there is apparently not enough money to pay for them, are in a state of virtual apoplexy.

• That ugly word ‘fracking’ has reappeared in our midst, and it is likely to generate controversies that are no less ugly. Fracking is a hugely contentious method of extracting fuel, namely shale gas, from subterranean sources. Wherever in this country the method has been contemplated, there has been an immediate and angry outcry.

People fear it will cause earthquakes or, at the very least, scarcely discernible earth tremors, and will have a devastating effect on the local environment.

However, North Yorkshire Council have just given the go-ahead to fracking in their locality, despite a petition signed by 4,000 people urging the council, in vain, to refuse the application. There is no doubt the vociferous protesters will not sit back and let the work go ahead without a fight. The battle is by no means over.

This country is in urgent need of the fuel which this practice will hopefully produce.

One is forced to the conclusion that if entrepreneurs in Victorian times had encountered this kind of protest at the appearance of new systems, the Industrial Revolution might never have taken place on the scale which it did.

And where would that have left us?

• I see that two Scottish Nationalists have been sharing the same woman - a journalist - for their illicit family-wrecking assignations.

That is a matter for their own consciences. But things have reached a pretty pass when the hotel bills for these adulterous events are handed to the British taxpayer.

And here we were assuming that MPs had learned their lesson about treating public money as though it were confetti.

Someone’s collar should be felt.