Cabinet ministers have been out and about presenting a united front in defence of the planned rise in National Insurance contributions. Dominic Raab, the Deputy Prime Minister, said: “I would much rather we didn’t have to do it but given the pandemic and the walloping of the public finances, we do.” The Prime Minister had “grasped the nettle”.

Nadhim Zahawi, the Education Secretary, had a similar message. The £12 billion in revenues were essential to fund the NHS and then an overhaul of social care. It was a “big decision” that the Prime Minister had got right, he said.

Except that Boris Johnson does not appear to share the commitment of his Cabinet colleagues to this policy. Asked yesterday to guarantee that the tax rise would proceed, he declined to do so. It is emblematic of the incoherence at the top of the Government that senior ministers are being sent out to argue for a policy that seems to be in a state of flux. One reason why Mr Johnson is losing support among his colleagues is because so many have been dispatched by No 10 to defend an approach that has later been jettisoned, occasionally on the same day.

If the tax rise is being reconsidered then that is welcome. The revenues are to be spent on an unreformed NHS and it is fanciful to believe they will seamlessly be switched to social care in three years’ time. Opposition to the increase is growing on the backbenches, though it should be noted that only five Tories voted against it when it was put to the Commons in September. More have joined their ranks, realising it will compound an expected cost of living shock in the spring. Mr Johnson is right to take notice.