Boris needs a minister for banana skins

Every prime minister needs a Willie, said Margaret Thatcher to a soundtrack of great national tittering.

She was of course referring to William Whitelaw, her massively experienced deputy upon whose advice she relied to moderate her zanier impulses and views.

Whitelaw fitted the bill as a non-ideological Conservative who had pledged his loyalty to her and genuinely had no further hankering for the top job himself, having been roundly defeated by Thatcher in the Tory leadership contest of 1975.

Just one of Whitelaw’s responsibilities was to act as ‘minister for banana skins’, using his man-of-the-world and resolutely non-intellectual outlook to spot impending problems and put forward practical solutions before they became full-blown crises.

Just how successful he was is difficult to judge because, let’s face it, history carries no reliable account of banana skins that were avoided, only those that were trodden on. But certainly Whitelaw’s peak years of influence coincided with the heyday of Thatcher.