Sunak has laid three bear traps for the government

Keir Starmer paused in the middle of his speech setting out the new government's legislative programme to say, almost as if he was surprised: "In each of our exchanges since the election, the leader of the opposition has gone well beyond the usual standards of generosity and I thank him for that."

- JOHN RENTOUL

Rishi Sunak had indeed struck an unexpected tone by congratulating the prime minister on his election win. He was self-deprecating about his own career, warning the hundreds of new MPs opposite that they might rise in politics but “before you know it, you have a bright future behind you and you are left wondering if you can credibly be an elder statesman at the age of 44”.

The last time a sitting prime minister stayed on as leader of the opposition was in 1997 when John Major briefly led the Conservatives in opposing Tony Blair’s juggernaut. The other change of government since then was in 2010, when Gordon Brown left the scene and Harriet Harman, the deputy Labour leader, served as leader of the opposition until the leadership election was held.

Sunak seems to take an old-fashioned view that, as party leader, it is his responsibility to hold the fort until a successor is chosen, and so he set out in his response to the King’s Speech the beginnings of a strategy for the Tory fightback.