B efore the burnish-filter Instagram shots, before GQ devoted a page to the cut of his lapel, before he autographed ? like a quality-control stamp ? his Treasury policies on Covid, even before the frenzy at his every utterance, like it was the Fonz up there on the afternoon press conference podium, and not the chancellor of the exchequer, there was a moment when Rishi Sunak was nervous.

It was late November. He had been chosen to stand in for Boris Johnson during a seven-way TV election debate on the BBC. Inside Westminster, it was a move that fanned the persistent rumours that Dominic Cummings, the PM’s chief adviser, wanted him to replace Sajid Javid as chancellor. In the country, no one had really heard of