When Boris Johnson said “sorry” following publication of the heavily redacted Sue Gray report, he promised to show that he meant it by fixing No.  10 and restoring consultative government. The clean-out began chaotically (staff resigned before the impression could be given that they were being sacked) but the appointment of Steve Barclay over the weekend as a new chief of staff holds out hope for the return of two much needed qualities: organisational discipline and Tory values.

They are connected. A chaotic government cut adrift from the parliamentary party, a legacy of the pandemic, is more likely to be prey to Civil Service orthodoxy, particularly from the Treasury, and it is no coincidence that just as Mr Johnson seemed to lose control of the narrative, policy also took a sharp turn to the Left. Policymakers have got themselves trapped in a series of highly destructive propositions – we must raise taxes as sharply as possible to finance the NHS, or Britain must hit carbon net zero at any cost – without appreciating what this means to the people ministers are elected to serve. 

That is why PMs should listen to MPs: they sometimes know better. Piling green levies onto bills, they will likely tell you, will push Britons into poverty; raising corporation taxes at a moment of recovery will scare investors; and the expectation that everyone will run out and buy an electric car or heat pump, especially when the infrastructure and market are not ready, is absurd. Today, we report that heat pumps, because they use more power than a traditional gas boiler, could actually cause a property’s energy efficiency ratings to fall and thus depress its market value. The Government has held meetings with industry representatives to consider a rule change to reflect this important detail.

The Prime Minister’s supporters insist that he has a right to wait and see what is in the final police report on Partygate and that he has an agenda to implement – but that agenda has got to be a new and distinctively Conservative one, offering a sharp contrast with Labour, realising the ambitions of Brexit. Hopefully, Mr Barclay represents a return to the direction of the centre-Right, because the only hope this Government has of regaining momentum is to return to the side of the taxpayer, the consumer, to all the voters who wish to move on from Covid and prosper, as free as possible from the hand of the state.