The Tory MP Conor Burns should not have been dismissed, let alone so swiftly

Mr Burns is one of the more interesting Tory MPs, having an Ulster Catholic background and being openly gay yet having become a unionist, pro Brexit, pro Boris right wing politician.

Only weeks ago, his career seemed to be over when he was stripped of the Tory whip and sacked as a junior trade minister at the end of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham.

The removal was so swift that it seemed he must have done something seriously wrong. Within days, however, reports emerged that Mr Burns has merely touched a man's leg. That might be inappropriate conduct in a minister, and even in some people's eyes a great wrongdoing. But few people would think that, outside of work, it merits job dismissal.

Now the Tory party says there is no basis on which to investigate further. Why then was Mr Burns sacked? If the evidence was threadbare why was it not possible to establish that quickly and let him stay in post? Or to suspend him, then within days reinstate him. Getting to the truth of such a minor incident is no big task.

Mr Burns says he has been through "hell". That might at first sound like an exaggeration but in fact it is plausible – his humiliating sacking will have caused many people to assume he had committed an offence, such as a sexual assault.

Mr Burns has cleared his name as he said he would. But his sacking was a capitulation to a hysteria in which people in authority seem to feel the need to assume that claims against prominent figures are proven.

The circumstances that led to the removal of Lady Susan Hussey as a volunteer in the royal household are different, but they involved a similar rush to judgement. But royals, like Tory leaders, know they are toxic in some eyes. In pandering to such critics, justice is cast aside.