Having dried her tears, where now for Melanie Phillips? She wants to "reclaim the middle ground", a statement that would surprise her legion of enemies. But in Guardian Angel she may surprise plenty more who are used to her trenchant criticisms of the Left by her equally robust denunciation of the Thatcherite legacy. "My beef was with a society consumed by individualism — and that applied to both Left and Right," she writes. "Far from saving Britain, the Thatcherites' utilitarian reductionism had helped erode still further the basis for moral authority and cultural tradition."

If her ebooks take off and reach the silent majority in the US and the UK, Melanie Phillips will have had the last laugh on those who have consistently underestimated her tenaciousness and self-belief.