Theresa May’s arrival in a converted RAF Voyager plane for the G20 summit in China admirably reflects her Government’s desire to project Britain as a leading independent power in the post-Brexit world.

For years Britain’s declining role in global affairs seemed to be summed up by Downing Street scrabbling around to charter a jet, or borrow one from the Queen’s Flight, to get our leaders to major international events while other world leaders swaggered into town in their own bespoke planes.

Gordon Brown is the reason this pitiful state of affairs was allowed to persist for so long. He prevented Tony Blair from pursuing his perfectly reasonable suggestion that a British prime minister should travel in style when representing us abroad. Thankfully David Cameron managed to rescue the situation by commandeering one of the RAF’s new fleet of Voyagers .

Thus when Mrs May’s plane parked up in Hangzhou alongside the others leaders’ jets in the early hours of Sunday morning, the new spirit of national assertiveness that seems to have taken root among our senior ministers did not seem out of place as Mrs May declared her intention for Britain to become “a global leader in free trade.”