A crowd is gathering along the marina in the coastal town of Hartlepool, next to a 30ft inflatable of Boris Johnson. Directly underneath it, the PM himself is addressing onlookers. “The Conservative Party is focussed on change,” he says, “and Jill will do just that.” 

Just as he is laying out his vision of the North East as a centre of industrial green revolution, the blow-up figure topples over in the wind. Life-size Boris takes a moment to joke with his audience, while it is re-erected: his doppelgänger reminds him, he says “of superintendent Ted Hastings from Line Of Duty.”