I became a Conservative because of Margaret Thatcher. It wasn’t just the colour of her politics, but the strength. When she said she would end union militancy, she ended it. When she sought a rebate from the EU, she got one. When she successfully undertook to retake the Falklands, she ended the Britain-is-in-decline narrative of the postwar period.

She might not have always brought harmony where there was discord or hope in every place where there was despair, as she promised on her first day in Downing Street, but, unlike most politicians, she didn’t regard winning elections as a tenth of what mattered. It was what you did with power that counted.

Could David Cameron be much more different? He promised to bring down immigration