Immediately made notes about comrade switching sides, joining British (4-4)

I haven't cracked this one yet — but the brilliant team at Times for the Times have:

Which I would consider being more about place than time, so that meaning of immediately. Made notes SANG. Comrade PAL, in this case switching sides means only that the P and L change places instead of the more usual L becomes R. Join LAP to B[ritish], set both in SANG, chuck in a hyphen.