There is fight in the Conservative Party yet. The voices of decline have not silenced the voice of its leader.
The Home Secretary received a spontaneous standing ovation for bombarding the liberal Establishment.
There is strong Conservative support for a robust safety net to save the most vulnerable from destitution.
The Chancellor may have reassured the markets by daring to be dull, but did nothing to raise the spirits of Conservatives.
The Defence Secretary said there is no way Putin can be offered a way out, for he can be depended upon to reject it.
The Business Secretary demonstrated to the Federation of Small Businesses that he will be their true friend and champion.
The new Home Secretary wants to uphold traditional British means of maintaining liberty and the rule of law.
Not since Lawson in his pomp has there been a Tory Chancellor who communicates such ebullient intellectual confidence, and such scorn for his critics.
The Business Secretary stood outside a pub and proclaimed his support for vitality, prosperity and commerce.
“People were saying it could be 20 or 30 hours in the queue,” a woman declared. “I said I don’t care if it’s 300 hours. It’s about respect for the Queen. She served us loyally for 70 years.”
Just as we find we were even more attached to Queen Elizabeth than we realised, so we find ourselves even more loyal to her successor than we expected.
But how grateful ,after 40 minutes of solemnity, the House was to be given a licence by Johnson the ex-PM to laugh.
For the first time since 1979, we saw a Tory PM enter office who believes in an economic doctrine and is not afraid to preach it.
The Manchester hustings showed 1400 Conservatives behaving in a benevolent and thoughtful way, characteristics almost impossible to dramatise.
The author compares politics to a game of snakes and ladders, but demonstrates that it is actually far harder than that.