Budget 1) This was less a Conservative Budget than “the People’s Budget”. From a Vote Leave Government – not the usual Tory one.

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.

John Redwood: Lessons for managing civil service obstruction from the Thatcher years. And my role as head of her Policy Unit.

There were plenty of Yes Minister routines and scripts to live through then as now. Much of the system did not like the privatisation programme.

Nadhim Zahawi: In defence of Cummings. He’s focused on delivering for those we serve. Isn’t that for the best?

We’ve been through all this before with the Gove education reforms – which he co-worked on and which have helped to improve lives.

Reshuffle 1) The lesson of this PJ Masks shakeup. For Johnson and Cummings, it is truly Do or Die.

We cheer the mission. But government needs more compromise, art, tact and accomodation than campaigning alone allows.

Claudia Martinez: Politicians like to boast about new hospitals but primary care should be the priority

Over a third of patients who attend A&E do so for non-urgent, minor injuries. They are unable to get GP appointments.

Neil O’Brien: Stormzy, “niggas”, “bitches” – and scholarships. Do we really want to fund racial groups?

Collecting statistics on people’s self-identified racial background is one thing.  Having ringfenced funding for one racial group is quite another.

The election in which the Conservatives finally waved farewell to Thatcher’s ghost

Johnson is a self-described “Brexity Hezza” and now has the chance to mould a Party and country in his own romantic image.

Garvan Walshe: How the majority needed to deliver Brexit will thwart the reform needed to make a success of it

A new Conservative Government will need to transform the economy. It remains to be seen whether this be done with a majority based on northern, post-industrial Britain.

Could Farage’s ‘Reform Party’ carve him a new role in post-Brexit British politics?

His ‘Contract with the People’ makes an effort to stake out some new territory for the People’s Army, but he faces an uphill climb.

Matt Kilcoyne: The Conservative manifesto. Wooing Labour heartlands with socialist policy is a doomed strategy.

The first piece of a series this week about what the Conservative Manifesto should look like.

Progressive Conservative reformers 4) Disraeli – and his first and only full term of government

When he declared that “the first consideration of a minister should be the health of the people”, he was beginning to map out an election-winning mass appeal. 

Progressive Conservative reformers 2) The domestic policy Neville Chamberlain

“The work done in partnership with Baldwin, and by Chamberlain alone after 1937, gave Britain some of the best welfare services in the world.”

Rachel Wolf: In defence of Cameron

My local secondary schools were no-go areas and no one from my primary school went to one. That won’t be my children’s experience, and he can take a lot of credit.

Henry Newman: Cummings understands the need to drastically reform Whitehall

It’s not an optional extra – it’s crucial to delivering an effective Brexit and making the most of the opportunities outside the EU.

Michael Gove: I have shown in government that I deliver. And as Prime Minister, I will deliver Brexit – and stop Corbyn.

My experience – mastering those detailed briefs, winning support, driving through reform – leaves me in the best position to achieve Brexit.