When he was Prime Minister, among the many things John Major was widely ridiculed for was his idea of having a traffic cones hotline, the idea being that frustrated motorists could ring up and vent their anger that cones were in place unnecessarily.

It was an idea borne out of a pressing need for the government to be seen to be doing something that connected to the real lives of voters.

At the time, Major was maintaining a fragile grip on power as his party was embroiled in a period of navel-gazing and turmoil over Europe.

Fast-forward to 2023 and the current Prime Minister is trying to turn down the political thermostat to do something similar - to bring round different factions within the party that are broadly divided between those with Green instincts and those with blue instincts.

Rishi Sunak has proclaimed he is on the side of drivers, and ordered a review of anti-car schemes such as low-traffic neighbourhoods, which prevent motorists from using rat-runs. The PM is also considering a crackdown on councils imposing 20mph speed limits.

It’s a tricky balancing act, not least because it is something of a u-turn on the energy issue.

He is casting himself as a friend of the motorist; a David Bowie reinvention, except not as stylishly executed. In fact, it was a rather clumsy policy about-turn, looking opportunistically at garnering the votes of drivers who want to go from A to B within the fastest time.

He is being driven on this issue by some raw politics: motorists who are a powerful force have been successful in pushing ULEZ up the agenda and compelling the PM to tack to the right.

In the recent by-election in Uxbridge and Ruislip, the plan for an extension of the controversial ULEZ scheme to greater London was seen as a key factor in Labour’s failure to wrest the seat from the Conservatives.

But before anyone gets carried away, it’s worth noting that the Prime Minister is not committing himself to anything. He has simply said that he would ‘review’ both rat-runs and a 20mph speed limit.

In another development, the five Tory London mayors who took the Mayor of London to court have lost their legal bid against the expansion of ULEZ, with judges saying Sadiq Khan was not acting outside his rights.

Their defeat may create a dilemma for KCC and its leader Roger Gough. He said the council would, if the plans for the ULEZ expansion were not shelved, “consider our options in relation to legal action pending the outcome of the ongoing Judicial Review”.

The judge’s ruling seemed fairly emphatic in rejecting the claim, so this may turn out to have been a case of political sabre-rattling. Of which there is quite a lot these days.