With the dawn of a new year, Theresa May’s Government is in no different a predicament than before. Without a Commons majority, it is hard to advocate any radical new policies that would get through Parliament. But that must not stop her ministers from forcefully championing Conservative ideas, or Jeremy Corbyn will win the arguments by default.

The Tories may think that madcap socialism is self-evidently so destructive that it will be rejected by the country, but they thought that at the election last June and yet Labour won 40 per cent of the votes. The fact that Mr Corbyn has failed to pull well ahead in the polls is no excuse for complacency. Ministers need to be out today defending their NHS policies from the inevitable Labour attack.

Mr Corbyn wants people to believe the capitalist system is rigged against them and that squeezing the well-off through higher taxes is the answer to the country’s problems. The Conservatives need to explain to voters why he is wrong.