The Tory Blair thinks is underrated

Liam Fox could have been designed by a committee of Tory modernisers. He was brought up in a council house, educated at a comprehensive and worked as a hospital doctor in the deprived east end of Glasgow. He has met Mother Teresa, still buys pop music and has long campaigned for the unfashionable cause of mental health provision. His wife is a lung-cancer specialist and charity worker. But he fails the soft-focus New Tory test on one crucial point: his politics are unashamedly, defiantly Thatcherite.

His face is thick with make-up when he turns up late for lunch at a bar overlooking Tower Bridge. He apologises: the television studio detained him and applied too much foundation. He orders a lamb burger and chips: modest fare by traditional Tory luncheon standards, but Fox is most at home in Butler’s Wharf, where he moved to on joining John Major’s government 12 years ago.