If Boris is to rediscover the vim and vigour that brought him into Downing Street then the role of the new committee examining the distancing rule is crucial. It is being chaired by a civil servant, Simon Case, the new permanent secretary at No 10, who until a month ago was working for Prince William.

A former private secretary to both David Cameron and Theresa May and a one-time director of strategy at GCHQ, Mr Case was brought in to coordinate the Government’s pandemic response – a sure sign that it had not been working well.

The Cambridge-educated mandarin is used to the trickiest of political problems.