Looks matter, ask Dorian
They say that politics is show business for ugly people, but the Chancellor is a well turned out, good looking, young chap and it has done him no harm.
But actions matter as well, they have to look and smell good and here the Chancellor is beginning to suffer.
Nothing says we are all in this together like swanning off to your holiday home in California, having totally failed to deal with a cost of living crisis.
And nothing says we are all in this together like discovering that the man responsible for gathering every single penny of taxation in this country is married to a woman who has non-dom tax status.
A wife who is therefore pretty much immune to all the tax rises that her husband is imposing on the rest of the country.
At any other time this would have cost the Chancellor his job and career.
But this is a Dorian Gray government. What matters is whether the public sees the real picture.
So far the ingrained idea that all politicians are as bad as each other has let this government get away with murder.
Is that now changing and changing permanently?
If not, then none of this matters.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.