Poor old Penny Mordaunt. She makes the cabinet after eight years in parliament only to be handed the poisoned chalice of defending Britain’s absurd £13.4 billion aid budget. Now she must explain to a sceptical electorate why she is pouring their money into daft projects around the planet while a cash-strapped health service cancels operations at home.

Ms Mordaunt has set out her stall with an article in The Daily Telegraph outlining her aims in this thankless post. In it she parrots the usual clichés about efficiency. She speaks the standard neocolonial language of an arrogant sector that claims to be saving the world. And she pretends it is in Britain’s interests to fund welfare dependency in foreign parts.

It is hard not to laugh