Theresa May has revealed she is a reluctant member of the In campaign

One of the worst kept secrets at Westminster is that Theresa May has a distinctly low opinion of Boris Johnson. As Home Secretary she has had more dealings with the Mayor of London than most Cabinet ministers, and there is clearly no love lost between the pair. When she decided to turn down his request to deploy water canons in London she didn’t do so via a discrete written ministerial statement, but by a statement in the Commons which Johnson himself had to sit through.

So, there’s a certain irony that May has adopted the EU referendum position that many of Boris’s allies thought he would. She is for In, but with reservations and implicit criticisms of the renegotiation and the In campaign.

The tone of May’s speech today was clear from the start. She emphasised that ‘this is not a rally.  It will not be an attack or even a criticism of people who take a different view to me.’