Adam Boulton, All Out Politics presenter

It has been hotter than average this summer and MPs' mid-summer madness has been off the scale. Just look at the state of party discipline.

The Conservative government's attempts to reach a Brexit deal has come under concerted attack from organised guerrilla bands of Tory MPs on both sides of the argument.

Meanwhile, the chief whip stands accused of cheating in the key knife-edge votes in parliament, on the evidence of his own MPs.

Labour is no more united.

Against the overwhelming advice from Labour MPs, the party's national executive decided not to adopt the internationally recognised definition of anti-Semitism into its rule book.

Dame Margaret Hodge, one of the party's most senior MPs, then loudly accused Jeremy Corbyn of being "a racist and an anti-Semite".

He said "I'm sorry you feel like that", but Dame Margaret is now being threatened with punishment by the party.

Meanwhile another MP, John Woodcock, resigned from the party disillusioned by Corbyn's policies and what he sees as the unfairness of the way party rules are being used against him.

Oh, and Mrs May owes her survival to four Labour MPs who voted with her and against a Labour three-line whip on a customs union. They face no sanctions.

Then there are the Liberal Democrats.

For all their championing of the EU, current leader Sir Vince Cable and predecessor Tim Farron both missed that vote completely.

Sir Vince says Labour told him it was okay to knock off early.

Tim Farron was giving a lecture about how to reconcile Christianity with being a Lib Dem politician.

The leader before that, the arch-Remainer Sir Nick Clegg, is currently urging hard Brexiteers, yes Brexiteers, to destroy the Chequers agreement.

Meanwhile, Jo Swinson had permission to be absent on maternity leave and paired her vote against Conservative Party chairman Brandon Lewis.

The Lib Dem whips were too dozy to notice when Brandon Lewis started voting when he shouldn't and when it mattered. The government lost one vote, and only defeated the Customs Union amendment with a majority of six.

It's no wonder that Mrs May tried to bring the curtain down early on parliament last week - especially since MPs aren't due to do much on their remaining days of term on Monday and Tuesday.

She just wanted to get her MPs away from Westminster where they find it easier to plot and where a herd mentality can easily turn into a stampede

But she couldn't even get the House to vote for a few days of extra holiday and the government had to withdraw that proposal.

The prime minister's motives, of course, were far from generous.

She just wanted to get her MPs away from Westminster where they find it easier to plot and where a herd mentality can easily turn into a stampede.

Above all, she wants to make sure that no vote of confidence in her is triggered, and that means keeping the number of Tory MPs formally requesting one from Sir Graham Brady, Chairman of the 1922 Committee, below 48.

Parliament is full of rumours that the pile of letters is perilously close to the quota. But nobody really knows.

We do know that three MPs - Andrew Bridgen, Andrea Jenkyns and Phil Davies - announced last week that they had sent in letters; and one MP, Simon Clarke, said he'd withdrawn his.

It is also clear Mrs May caved and adopted the obstructive amendments tabled by Jacob Rees-Mogg's European Research Group and opposed the soft Brexit amendments from Anna Soubry and "the dirty dozen" on the other side because the ERG threatened to spark a vote of confidence if she didn't. The ERG claims well over 40 Tory MP members.

They'll be one more weekend of worry for the prime minister before MPs finally head home, but barring unlikely accidents she has survived the summer term and is into the recess.

Her white paper remains the UK's official position for negotiations with the EU.

A lot of people didn't expect her to get this far. That doesn't mean Mr and Mrs May can truly relax on their walking holidays in August.

A lot of people didn't expect her to get this far. That doesn't mean Mr and Mrs May can truly relax on their walking holidays

Tory MPs will spend at least some of their free time this summer in their constituencies talking to activists. The heartlands are restless.

In recent opinion polls the Conservative share of the vote had dropped around 5% and the moribund UKIP has revived by the same amount.

When they get back to the Commons on 3 September some windy MPs, worried about their own chances of re-election, may decide they need a stronger line against the EU - and a tougher leader.

If there are enough letters by then, the vote of confidence could just about take place during that short two-week session before the conference season.

The convention is for Tory MPs to vote in person when the House is sitting.

More likely, a head of steam could build up towards a tumultuous Conservative Party conference at the end of September. The conference is the favourite stomping ground of that rogue elephant, Boris Johnson.

It's worth remembering that the last two Conservative leaders who were ousted by their own party - Margaret Thatcher and Iain Duncan Smith - both got the boot in the autumn, just weeks after edgy party conferences.

Even without a challenge to the leader, politics will be explosive in the last three months of this year.

As the Brexit deadline of 29 March 2019 draws ever closer, the government will be negotiating Brexit on two fronts with both the rest of the EU and parliament at home.

Recharge your batteries as best you can this August. Then fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Sky Views is a series of comment pieces by Paste BN editors and correspondents, published every morning.

Previously on Sky Views: John Sparks - Obama speaks up for liberals around the world