Should a new Prime Minister automatically trigger a general election?

A comfortable if not overwhelming win for the principle that a new occupant of Downing Street should face the country, not just the party: 29 votes to 20, an 18-point margin from 49 voters. That is a clear verdict but not the rout the topic might invite, given how directly it speaks to the memory of three unelected premierships since 2016.

The more striking fracture was not between generations but between the sexes. Men who voted were split exactly down the middle, 13-13, showing no settled view on whether a leadership coup should force voters back to the polls. Women, by contrast, backed the idea by 78% to 22%, among the widest gender gaps this kind of constitutional question tends to produce.

Age, meanwhile, told a flatter story than usual. The under-35s, who supplied the bulk of the votes, backed the change by a consistent 64%, while the older cohorts were too thin in number to read with confidence beyond noting they were evenly torn. That leaves this less a story of young radicals versus older custodians of convention, and more one of women converging on a democratic-accountability instinct that men, collectively, could not agree on.

The lesson, if there is one: on a question that cuts to how power actually changes hands in Britain, it was gender rather than generation that decided the shape of the yes vote.