EVERY WEDNESDAY

In other words, should the lady of outrageous fortune in becoming Prime Minister remodel her government?

The first point is that it would not calm her sea of troubles. The Tory Party’s basic problem is that it no longer knows what it stands for.

It is a curious mix of Brexiteers and Remainers, free marketeers – regardless of the fact that no markets are unfettered – and softer, modern Tories with a social conscience. How to reconcile them all is anybody’s guess.

All this against a perilous background. While President Donald Trump and rocket man Kim Jong-un, not to mention Vladimir Putin, destabilise the world, we are spending about £40bn a year on servicing a budget deficit of around £50bn and a national debt racing towards £2 trillion.

The very existence of the UK is under threat from the silly Scots; the NHS demands urgent reform; the state education system is failing badly, partly due to parental neglect; we don’t know how to cope with an ageing population or the flood of immigrants unleashed by Tony Blair; the law seems to be broken more than it is observed; and, like the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, the population apparently thinks we can solve all our problems by chucking money we don’t have at them.

As if that were not enough, the Tories are assailed by Brexit whose advocates draw ever more strength from the saucy intransigence of Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, and his EU negotiator, Michel Barnier, whose banner is emblazoned with “Thanks for the war effort, but now pay up”.

Two questions arise: pay up with what and who in their right mind would