What does Theresa May think of the Duke of Westminster, who died this week? I ask because she says she wishes to lead a country that works “not for a privileged few but for every one of us”. So is she someone who feels it monstrously unfair that Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor should have ended up “worth” more than £9 billion, essentially because of the accident of birth, or does she think such accidents are symptoms of a free and stable country?

Mrs May is by no means the first Tory Prime Minister to say such things against privilege. Margaret Thatcher (teasing Tony Benn in 1987) spoke of “irreversible shift ... of power ... in favour of working people and their families”. John Major said he wanted to create a “classless society”. David Cameron promised at the 2015 general election that he would reward “ordinary people who play by the rules”. He was trying, before a certain other matter deposed him in June, to concentrate on what he called “a life chances agenda” to achieve this.

No Conservative is going to come into office saying he or she wishes to entrench privilege and increase inequality. They will all speak of the needs of the many. But one needs to ask them what they mean by what they say. If they are not careful, they will find they are advocating socialism.