Ever since anyone can remember, there have been complaints that British elections have become "too presidential". Back in the 1970s, when the principals were Ted Heath and Harold Wilson, their duel was ridiculed as "a man with a boat and a man with a pipe".

So this spring's contest, with its relentless focus on the woman with the bag and the man with the beard, is not so much a new development as the culmination of a long-established trend. This was by Tory design because making it a personality contest was supposed to be to their benefit. The name of Theresa May is emblazoned on her campaign coach in lettering so enormous that it probably can be seen from outer space. The word Conservative is a microscopic footnote. The Tory campaign has been organised around the projection of the Supreme Leader to the virtual exclusion of every other member of the cabinet. Even Margaret Thatcher in her pomp would share appearances with her ministers. Mrs May has granted just the one "podium moment" to a member of the cabinet when she appeared alongside Philip Hammond and conspicuously failed to reassure the chancellor that he was safe in his job.

I, myself and me. That is how she likes to start her sentences. She asks for an enlarged majority to "give me a mandate" to negotiate Brexit. "I offer myself as your prime minister" - no nonsense about being the captain of a team. When she launched her programme, it was "my manifesto for Britain's future", words that soon came back to haunt her when one of its key policies began to unravel.