Reports of Sunak’s foul mood in No 10 echo the final days of other dying administrations

If Rishi Sunak was able to set aside four hours to see the 84-year-old Sir Ian McKellen playing Falstaff in London’s West End, he would have a powerful reminder not just of the longevity of some careers but also how uneasily some wear the crown.

One of the great exceptions is James Callaghan, “Sunny Jim”, who, in the 1979 election campaign – fought in the shadow of the winter of discontent – hoped the polls might turn around but admitted ruefully to Bernard Donoughue, his policy adviser, “there may have been one of those sea changes in public opinion.

Lord Tebbit, the great Thatcherite, recalls the door closing behind his hero as she entered No 10 for the first time, and “immediately the windows which look rather large from the outside begin to get smaller, showing those inside less of the outside world as the famous red boxes grow around the prime minister”.

Sir Douglas Jay, for instance, likened Clement Attlee as less to “a general ordering his troops across the landscape”, and “more to a cornered animal or a climber on a rock face unable to go up or down”.

He would not disagree with Tebbit’s description about the irreversible damage of the ERM episode: “For some 30 years prior to Black Wednesday, Gallup’s monthly tracking polls had asked respondents which party they saw as the more competent to manage the economy.

Theresa May had her own problems with her cabinet, especially with the undisciplined Boris Johnson, and the hard Brexit supporting press, but at least in the final two years with Gavin Barwell as chief of staff, Downing Street dealt with them with equanimity.