A ghost haunts the Conservative leadership contest, and she wears a pussy-bow blouse. From podiums and interviews come echoes of Margaret Thatcher’s cry to “roll back the frontiers of the state”. First we had Grant Shapps saying the state should “get out of the way” and Nadhim Zahawi talking of slashing departmental budgets by 20 per cent; now we have Penny Mordaunt calling for “low tax . . . small state” principles and Liz Truss declaring that she has a “plan to bring down the size of the state”, scythe glinting in her hand. Ah, the dream of a slimline, shrunken state. Perhaps this is music to the ears of Tory members, but I find the whole thing perplexing and dispiriting.
Perplexing because this state-shrinking
