Here is a politician educated at Sandhurst and on active service with the Scots Guards in Northern Ireland, not by reading PPE at Oxford.
This is not the first time that the Prime Minister has been misread by opponents who deluded themselves into believing he was set on No Deal.
The Government is poised to reverse the trend to competition rather than collaboration that has marked healthcare policy for 30 years.
We give you divorce reform, abortion law in Northern Ireland, citizenship rights for three million Hong Kongers, and the rainbow flag.
This compilation of some of the terms he has used shows how, while rising to national leadership, he reassured outsiders that he was still one of them.
Those who argue that the virus isn’t a serious problem and that the lockdown was unnecessary have more brains than sense.
It may be necessary, given the Coronavirus, and could even work. But Britain has a long, long record of state spending failing to turbo-charge growth.
Her critics have accused her of being “inept” and “demanding”. Could their ultimate problem be that the Home Secretary is female?
One has to pinch oneself to remember that as recently as last July May was Prime Minister, Hammond Chancellor of the Exchequer and Gauke Lord Chancellor.
If a UK-EU deal is agreed, it will be because both men want one urgently – which in turn opens a chance to reset Anglo-Irish relations.
Steve Brine and Greg Clark, who have also been deprived of the whip, voted with the Government – which lost by 289 votes to 306.
Plus: What would it take to get the Cabinet leavers to resign? Clarke’s Maastricht Treaty Customs Union moment. And: in defence of Robbie Gibb.
The Government is suggesting that it will make little difference in practical terms – but opposed it for symbolic and political reasons.
I like Fiona Bruce. I hope she can pull the programme out of the doldrums. But I fear its time has past.
We are in danger of losing sight of the simple truth which has been a favoured phrase of Tory politicians through the ages: borrowing today is simply taxation deferred.