Theresa May's relaunch has changed nothing – she is the 'just about managing' Prime Minister

If, in 1998, Opal Fruits had rebranded themselves as Opal Fruits there would at least be historical precedent for the Theresa May “relaunch” of July 2017.

As the relaunched Prime Minister stood on stage, reading out her bland assessment of a bland review she had commissioned into working conditions, it was as if a tree had stayed upright in a forest and no one had heard it.

A relaunch, yes, but, well, nothing had changed. Nothing had changed.

Perhaps that’s just as well. For a woman whose determination to “get on with the job” is matched only by the determination of the rest of the country for her not to be getting on with it, that a relaunch can occur without any outward sign it is happening is arguably encouraging.

Political re-launches tend to be a messy business anyway. The only object that is truly launched is a rocket, and if a rocket requires re-launching, people will almost certainly have died, a sad reality as literally true at Cape Canaveral as it is metaphorically true in politics.

That she arrived more than twenty minutes late for a speech on the gig economy was nothing if not fitting. If she’d have been an uber she’d have got one star. If she’d been a lamb rogan josh with pilau rice and a peshwari nan, she’d have been stone cold.

There is, of course, some very obvious irony and some very obvious jokes to be made in Theresa May making voicing her sympathies for those who have “jobs but no job security” while the nation speculates about the number of weeks she might have left in hers. About her determination that all jobs should have “scope for achievement and development” while she stands to go down as the worst Prime Minister in history since the last one. About how work can “provide good health and mental well being” as she grows steadily more unhinged.

But the overwhelming ironies do not stop there. It will be precisely a year on Thursday since she stood on the steps of 10 Downing Street and promised to do something to help the “just about managing.” Now, she is the just about managing Prime Minister. Getting on with the job, yes, but life is that much harder than many people realise.

You’re doing your best, but life can sometimes be a struggle. You can just about manage, but you worry about whether you’ll have enough money left at the end of the negotiating period to leave the European Union.

Conservatives have long believed in the power of the individual to help themselves. If Theresa May’s “commitment to change Britain” really does “remain undimmed” the person in most urgent need of her help is herself.