“He is the Red Adair of the administration – the middle-order batsman who, if the openers are out cheaply, ensures that the middle order does not collapse.”
He discusses his new book, Hearts and Minds, in which he traces the change in Conservative ideas from Thatcher to Cameron and beyond.
Gone are the days when the Prime Minister could sweep Corbyn aside as a ludicrous leftie.
Even her warmest admirers will want her doctors to testify that she is fit enough to carry on without wrecking her health.
And Conservative activists applaud a call to end “the fetishisation of the Green Belt”.
No experiments! That is the reassuring message out of Manchester.
The Chancellor took aim at Corbyn’s 1970s Marxism.
If the Conservative Party can be saved by good-humoured moderation, the First Secretary of State will provide it.
He is one of the biggest conference draws, because he is one of the best and most ebullient advocates of Brexit.
The PM lost her majority by running a single issue campaign which left Corbyn the chance to pose as the champion of ordinary people.
Corbyn thinks he is about to carry all before him, and conveys a kind of hubris.
His reforms will cripple his MPs and are a posthumous triumph for Tony Benn’s belief in extra-Parliamentary action.
The former Attorney-General also touches on Johnson and the £350 million – “a subject best parked” – and a definitive treatise on nymphomania.
She can indicate that neither her party nor the public will be satisfied if she bows the knee to Brussels.
She makes this case in her first publication, but is far too anxious never to cause anyone in the educational establishment any offence.