A look at the career of Bournemouth MP Tobias Ellwood

But sometimes they provide a helpful insight into the relationship between politicians.

The exchanges between Bournemouth East MP, Tobias Ellwood and Boris Johnson when the Prime Minister appeared before the Liaison Committee in November did little to hide the obvious dislike the two men have for each other.

The seven-minute dialogue of the deaf was tetchy and fractious in places, as the pair talked over each other and illustrated the yawning chasm between them over defence and foreign affairs.

The Conservative MP tackled Johnson on a range of issues, including Tory cuts to the armed forces leading to fewer planes, tanks and a 10,000 reduction personnel.

Johnson lectured Ellwood saying he did not think "going back to 1940s tank battles" was the answer to global security issues.

It was a flippant answer to a nuanced point that clearly rankled with the former military man.

And within a few short weeks, last Wednesday night Russian tanks rolled over the border into Ukraine.

In the hours after the invasion began Ellwood called for a no-fly zone to be enforced.

The Ukraine situation had been "building up for four months and the West has failed to alter the trajectory of events," he said.

Six months ago he called for a NATO division to be moved into Ukraine.

He said if Kyiv fell history would ask why the West did not do more.

The relationship between Johnson and Ellwood, such as it ever was, had sunk to a new low when Johnson sacked Ellwood from his job as Minister of State at Defence in a reshuffle shortly after entering Number 10 in July 2019.

In the leadership contest in the previous months, Ellwood had supported Matt Hancock, then Rory Stewart and finally Jeremy Hunt in the run off.

For the Bournemouth East MP it was a case of ABJ - Anyone But Johnson.

So it was little surprise that Ellwood put his head above the parapet and sent a letter to the chair of the backbench 1922 Committee Sir Graham Brady two weeks ago saying he no longer had confidence in the Prime Minister.

He said it was “time to resolve” the Downing Street party scandal as the Conservative Party was “slipping into a very ugly place”.

Ellwood's dismissal from a job he relished in 2019 was a low point in a political career that had been on an upward trajectory for some time.

The sacking came after he repeatedly warned, as a Remainer, the candidates for the Conservative leadership against considering a no-deal exit from the European Union. But it was inevitable anyway.

The 55-year-old, born in New York and educated in Bonn, Vienna and Loughborough University has been talked of as far back as 2017 as a potential leadership contender at some point.

He considered a tilt when David Cameron quit but was told it was too soon.

As with acting, timing is everything in politics.

The former army captain who served in the Royal Green Jackets rising to the rank of captain, was first elected to Parliament in 2005, having previously worked in finance. That same year he married his Hannah Ryan, an international lawyer. They have two children.

He first major job was a shadow portfolio that included tourism, in 2007.

But his big step up came in 2014 when Cameron made him Minister of State at the Foreign Office with responsibility for the Middle East and Africa. His profile grew.

May appointed him to the Ministry of Defence three years later.

Meanwhile at local level, the relationship between Ellwood and his Bournemouth West MP, Tory colleague Conor Burns is strained.

The two men tolerate one another because they have to work together for the town.

But in private they are far from complimentary about each other.

Burns' status as one of Boris Johnson's closest aides, a man who has his ear, is another source of tension between the pair.

Ellwood has made the odd misstep.

He was pilloried in 2015 for saying in a letter to the Commons' expenses and salary watchdog IPSA that he could not live on a salary of £90,000 when MPs pay was being discussed.

He said he did not earn enough and had to 'watch the pennies.'

Ellwood later apologised.

Read more: MPs expenses: Bournemouth East MP only conurbation politician to reduce spending

He worried for some time afterwards that he had damaged his reputation and sought advice on how to repair it.

In 2005, a thief stole David Cameron's election battle plans for Dorset and Hampshire from the MP's car parked at Hengistbury Head. The culprit quickly threw the computer bag away after deciding the paperwork was worthless.

But Ellwood, whose majority in Bournemouth East is 8,800, has burnished his reputation in the past few years with confident and competent stints at the two hugely important departments and more recently as chair of the influential Defence Select Committee, whose role is to hold the government to account.

He has rarely been off the television and radio in the past year, seen as a knowledgeable and authoritative source on everything from Russia, Ukraine and China to the state of Britain's armed forces and the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, a subject he feels very deeply about.

As former military man he commands the kind of respect in the Commons reserved for those who have been in the armed forces.

They are listened to. His colleague Tom Tugendhat is another in those ranks.

Ellwood was hailed a hero for his instinctive reactions to the fatal stabbing of PC Keith Palmer outside Parliament in March 2017.

While colleagues ran away from potential danger, Ellwood courageously ran towards it and made frantic efforts to save the police officer's life with mouth to mouth resuscitation, before paramedics arrived.

The pictures of that incident with Ellwood covered in blood crouched over the stricken officer remain haunting.

He was elevated to the Privy Council in recognition of his actions.

The MP is no stranger to the devastating effects of terrorism. His brother Jonathan was killed in the Bali bombings of 2002.

Ellwood has now gone out on limb over Ukraine.

At the weekend he told the BBC that Britain was in denial and should commit boots on the ground there - one of the very few calling for that option.

"We need to wake up to our responsibilities We are defending a European democracy," he said. "The West has been asleep at the wheel."

His frustration with his adversary Johnson and with his old department the Foreign Office is clear.

"Number 10 and the Foreign Office don't know what they want to do. We used to be good at this kind of thing."

He believes deeply in his cause.

But there may some leadership calculations in there too.