“I never had his approval ratings…I think he’s made a great start…I think he’s made a great start.”
The party is pinned down where it feels at home – in its new heartlands of central London, the middle of major cities and the University towns.
The Chancellor is set to build a relief road to get round the present pile-up of Government, banks and business.
Ministers can carry on trying, through the British Business Bank or directly, to push on this Gordian Knot – or slice through it.
And so it was that the cause of Remain, fronted by Cameron and George Osborne, lost out to that of Leave, led by…Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.
The move back to two party politics of 2017 seems to be repeating itself this time round.
Class war was the tried and trusted theme. Yet the Labour leader has managed to come across as both weak and extreme.
Plus: Will the 21 rebels get the whip back? And: The Tories need younger members, and so does everyone else.
Plus: my profound sense of unease at the withdrawal of the whip from 21 Conservative MPs.
Esther McVey with the support of MPs from across the party is refreshing and renewing the project.
The Prime Minister seemed to imply that if MPs will not bend to her will, she is off.
The new group’s platform is not very inspiring. But its biggest problem is it they won’t be very different from the Conservatives’.
He is the only candidate who can further the work of the project to which Esther McVey and I are so committed.