In news you could be forgiven for missing, David Cameron has resigned as MP and George von Osborne has re-emerged from the family crypt. I was never a huge fan of the former, but I feel that may have been down to the fact his premiership was almost a job-share with the latter. A man I’d describe in my more charitable moments as a malignant cane toad.

Cameron throwing in the towel was pretty much a given, for a number of reasons. There’s certainly truth to the one he gave, which is that he didn’t feel he could be just another backbencher anymore. Usually that sort of claim is just transparent hand-wavy fantasy, but I imagine such a large step backwards genuinely would be hard for anyone to cope with. It’d also give the media an absolute field day. Any time he disagreed with the frontbench on anything it’d be blown out of all proportion.

This is, at least in part, because Remain vs. Leave aren’t just views on whether the UK should have stayed in the EU or not. They’ve developed into full-blown political positions, sub-ideological belief systems that have their own dogma. Any nicely simplified playing-out of this new polarity in national politics would be too much for the press to resist. They’d go into meltdown every time there was even a hint of disagreement.

More cynically, he also might be feeling a tad exposed if a local election were called. Witney – like me – is in Oxfordshire, which – like me – voted overwhelmingly to Remain. There could well be some bitterness towards the man who not only called the referendum when there was no need to do so, but then proceeded to bungle it in the most heroic of fashions.

That’s not to say I think Witney is suddenly going to stop voting Conservative, as that seems extremely unlikely. It’s a Tory safe seat by 43% of the vote. Not with 43% of the vote, but by a clear 43% margin. It is staying blue. However, if there were another Tory candidate running then Dave might find himself being punished by the electorate. Since punitive voting was arguably a large part of what led to Brexit in the first place, I can hardly blame him for wanting to avoid going through it again.

But there’s a less realpolitik reason that might be equally – or more – significant. If Cameron were to have to run against another Tory and then lose, it would play into a narrative that would be ideologically intolerable to him. Any likely challenger would probably be of the New Guard, as part of May and the more aggressive right of the party trying to consolidate their position. To lose under such circumstances would give all-too public a manifestation to the battle taking place within the Tory party; Cameron’s Fabian Tories vs. May’s Neo-Thatcherites. So Cameron has robbed those opposed to his side of the chance to win that important – if purely symbolic – battle.

Which brings us back to George. As the other half of what was effectively a binary Prime Ministership, he has remained in play. After a very quiet summer – the only public comment of note being ‘on message’ for Tory progressives – he is now getting into position to oppose the new cabinet. I suspect the plan had been to bed in and wait a while for some hot topic to pop up, then to pounce and try to rally support in order to swing the party back a bit further to the centre. What he may not have planned for was finding himself in a position to do so this soon.

With May taking a larger-than-expected jump rightwards and starting the year with the grammar schools announcement, he had little choice. This may be a considered ploy by the cabinet to try and identify, then deal with, any rebellion sooner rather than later. Or possibly to force its hand before it can get properly organised. Not so much because Osborne himself is seen as a major threat, but because knowing who is likely to work with him is of value. Ahead of the budget review – due in November – it could be that there’s some nervousness about contentious details being leaked by treasury staff sympathetic to their old boss.

If there’s one fight that May really doesn’t want to have to pick with the remains of the previous cabinet, it’ll be on the economy and with George Osborne. I thought he was a terrible chancellor, but because I disagreed with him rather than because I thought him incompetent. He is well-placed to tear apart the budget review, if details are leaked to him in advance and thus giving him time to compile an informed and detailed response. So while he’s probably not seen as a leadership threat – he has all the charisma of septic gout – he could still be very damaging if given the opportunity.

I say ‘probably not’ because there is one route I can think of that would lead to him getting the required support. If Corbyn cements his leadership hold over the Labour Party – which looks likely – then there is going to be an exodus amongst the Blairite vote. Centrist Tories might see making a bid for this base as too good an opportunity to miss. They could even pick up a few migratory MPs along the way, bolstering their cause inside Westminster, as well as out.

Not only would this support give them back effective control of the Commons, but it would potentially do so to such an extent as to re-trivialise the new right. This would be seen as a massive victory, especially at a time when the right-wing of the party is otherwise only going to grow, as UKIP single-issue supporters drift back to their spiritual home. A leadership contest could be forced, a General Election held while Labour are busy eating themselves, and Project Camborne is back in business.

So George Osborne is trying to do what David Miliband attempted with Gordon Brown. Only he’s trying to do it in a more logical place: The Conservative backbenches. Just as D-Mil tried to win back control for the Blairites after Brown tried to make Labour much too Labour-y for their liking, Osborne is doing the same with May’s new era.

As is always the case after any huge disruption to the status quo, things are going to oscillate around for a while trying to find a new normal. Expect to see a tug of war between those who want to see a continuation of the Cameron-Osborne agenda and those who want to return to 1980 Bastard Politics. I’d rather have neither, but given the state of the non-Tory opposition and the continual creep further rightwards of the new establishment, I’ll take the ‘Compassionate’ Conservatism any day.