“There is a lot of Michael,” he says, adding that “if we’ve lost any ground it is disturbing”. Hunt appears to diagnose one possible cause. “In education you have a particularly strong voice in the trades union movement. The NUT or NASUWT absolutely have their role, but the debate is often framed with the government on one side and the unions on the other. We need to be in the space of putting out a message and an attractive political prospect around education. On child care, on the forgotten 50 per cent, or on what we want to do about teacher quality, we’re beginning to lay out some of that terrain.”