Being chatted up by the young Theresa May must have been a blowtorch experience. ‘I offer myself as your Prime Minister,’ she rasped yesterday, fixing us with blazing eyes and a nose angled like a fish-hook.

‘Vote for me,’ she said, three times. It was not so much a request as an instruction, issued with breathy, alto insistence. She promised ‘a resolute determination to get on with the job’.

No wonder husband Philip is such a quiet fellow. It is quite possibly simple exhaustion. Imagine being courted by such a laser-focused phenomenon. Turbo-charged trout.

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Theresa May pictured during the Conservative Party manifesto launch in West Yorkshire

Theresa May’s party – the artist formerly known as the Conservatives – launched its election manifesto at a Halifax wedding-reception space called The Arches, part of an old industrial mill.

They occasionally have Bavarian nights at The Arches, chaps dressing up in lederhosen and the lasses presumably in Angela Merkel costumes. Phwoarr. Halifax is a marginal Labour seat at present.

You can tell a party’s ambitions from its manifesto-launch venue. Labour used a university campus in Bradford (going for student/public-sector votes in that Left-wing town). The Lib Dems opted for an East London nightclub (the metropolitan raver vote).

The Tories were in Halifax because they are after centrist northern English voters and this renovated mill spoke of industrial revival. Their launch was the smallest but the most controlled and serious. Theresa doesn’t do frivolous.

Trade union protestors – including someone dressed as a Dalek – had gathered outside the venue. Contained by police, many of them had taken to a road high above the mill, their banners and placards visible above a wall – Zulu spears on the horizon. ‘Tories out!’ came a distant chant. It felt nostalgic for the 1980s.

Inside we were shown a video which had female and ethnic voters saying ‘I’m standing with Theresa May’. Around the stage was the slogan ‘Forward, Together’. The 84-page manifesto contained only one photograph – of Mrs May at a recent campaign event.

No wonder Theresa May's husband Philip (pictured) is such a quiet fellow. It is quite possibly simple exhaustion. Imagine being courted by such a laser-focused phenomenon, writes Quentin Letts

The party launched its election manifesto at a Halifax wedding-reception space called The Arches, part of an old industrial mill

Enter the Cabinet, Boris newly shampoo’d; he was sandwiched between his two foes, Home Secretary Amber Rudd and Chancellor Philip Hammond. Poor Boris. Many of the men were in obedient blue ties.

David Davis, Brexit Secretary, had been chosen as warm-up man (does Mrs May see the reliable Davis as her de facto deputy?). The moment she entered, the Cabinet shot to their feet, as though just electrocuted in the privates. They burst into frantic applause. Look, miss, I’m clapping as hard as I possibly can. Please don’t sack me! It may not be enough to save Liz Truss and Sajid Javid.

Mrs May was more animated than sometimes. There was a sense not quite of nervousness but certainly of the significance of this declaration of intentions. She wanted to build a ‘Great Meritocracy’.

There would be ‘obstacles in our way’ (the House of Lords? Nicky Morgan?). It was all going to take ‘discipline and focus, effort and hard work and above all a unity of purpose’. Gulp.

The Tories were in Halifax because they are after centrist northern English voters and this renovated mill spoke of industrial revival. Their launch was the smallest but the most controlled and serious

It all sounded decidedly Lenten. My eyes wandered longingly to a Gin Bar adjacent to the space where she was speaking. In one of the more interesting passages, she defined the typical British voter: ‘They are not ideological, don’t buy into grand visions, aren’t fooled by politicians who promise the earth. They do not ask for much.

‘They just want to get on with their lives, do their best for their children and be given a fair chance.’

When she was later asked to describe ‘May-ism’ she instantly snorted: ‘There is no May-ism! There is good solid Conservatism which puts ordinary working people at the heart of everything we do in Government.’

Despite that disavowal of an ‘ism’, she spoke pointedly about ‘my mainstream Government’. The first-person singular was also dominant in her final crescendo, delivered almost with fury: ‘Come with me as I lead Britain, as a I fight for Britain, as I deliver for Britain.’

Pure theatrical chastisement.