You don’t want to be f***ing doing that mate, is all it takes.
Whether it is policy, speech, television clip or campaign stunt, the southern Australian drawl delivers the last rites and the idea is dead, however senior the mind behind it.
Sitting at the 4pm meeting alongside the prime minister in No 10, or at his desk in the open-plan office in Conservative headquarters, Lynton Crosby waits, listens and then refuses. There is no menace, and a good deal more charm and risqué humour than the pantomime caricature allows for.
There is no mistaking that when the 58-year-old Tory election campaign chief speaks, his is meant to be the last word. “Interventions are sparing, and more powerful for being so,” said one person who