Behind every successful supreme leader there’s a very rich successful investment banker. Or, for their joint appearance on The One Show, beside her. Philip looked relatively happy to be on the sofa chatting to Matt Baker and Alex Jones. Theresa could hardly have appeared more awkward if she tried.

Baker broke the ice with a gentle loosener. How hard was it being the husband of the supreme leader? Here was Philip’s moment to reveal all. To say it was a complete misery spending hour after hour with a woman whose only conversation was ‘strong and stable’. Instead he chose to remain loyal. “There’s give and take,” he said. “I get to choose when to put the bins out.” Philip is clearly a man whose sense of humour doesn’t get many chances to shine.

“There are boys jobs and girls jobs,” simpered Theresa. Immediately we were right back in a 1960s chat show. A world where men were boys and women were girls. She didn’t specify what the girls’ jobs were. Other than being supreme leader.

Jones then asked about why the supreme leader had changed her mind on her walking holiday in Wales about holding an election. Theresa couldn’t really come out and say, “What would you have done if you found yourself 20 points ahead in the polls?” so she muttered something about doing the country a favour. “What was the drive back to London like?” asked Baker. The supreme leader gave this some thought. The traffic had been quite light on the A5 all things considered but there had been a bit of a snarl up on a contraflow on the M1 outside Luton.

Theresa May had wanted to be prime minister for years, husband says Read more

With the interview dying on its feet and most viewers thinking it a pity Philip wasn’t the prime minister, Baker announced he was going to stop talking about politics because he wanted to get to know the supreme leader a bit better. “Will we be leaving Eurovision?” he asked. The supreme leader was momentarily blindsided as Lynton Crosby hadn’t given her a script for this. “No,” she said eventually. “But I’m not sure how many points we will get.” She didn’t appear to be aware that it was a longstanding tradition for Britain to get next to none.

After a short break, the supreme leader went on to say she had met lots of different people from all walks of life while she was growing up in the vicarage but despite that had set her heart on being a Conservative MP. “It’s been said you wanted to be prime minister from a very young age,” Jones observed.

“I don’t recognise that,” the supreme leader replied.

“I only heard her saying she wanted to be prime minister when she joined the shadow cabinet,” said Philip, not altogether helpfully. The supreme leader shot him a death stare. Revealing she had had her eyes on the top job since 1999 wasn’t necessarily the look she was hoping for.

To compensate, the supreme leader went full Maybot. “The country needs strong and stable government. The country needs strong and stable leadership. I came from a strong and stable family. The country needs stability.” A look of quiet desperation crossed Philip’s face and several million people at home felt his pain. They really didn’t know how he did it.

“We’ve found some old footage of Philip from the 1980s,” said Baker. Had anyone at The One Show bothered to turn up the volume it could have been TV gold as the camera had caught Philip delivering a personal hymn to the European Union. But the moment passed silently and both Theresa and Philip breathed a little easier.

By now, Baker was looking at his watch. Even by the anodyne standards of an early evening magazine show this was desperate. Philip tried to liven things up but the supreme leader somehow managed to kill every exchange stone dead. Yes he had thought she was a lovely girl when he first met her. The supreme leader had felt much the same. “Very stable, very stable,” she said.

“This is turning into an episode of Mr and Mrs,” said the helpless Baker. It wasn’t. It was even worse. Did the red box ever make it into the bedroom? The supreme leader didn’t think it had. Though she couldn’t rule it coming into the bedroom at a later stage. As long as it was strong and stable enough.

“I do like ties. And jackets,” said Philip, trying to fill dead air.

“That’s all we’ve got time for,” sobbed a relieved Jones, as Theresa and Philip scuttled away, pleased to have got off relatively unscathed.

Five years previously Baker had made a name for himself by asking David Cameron the killer question, “How do you sleep at night?” There was no need to ask it tonight. The answer was obvious. By playing back recordings of her TV appearances.