I’d hear discussions at the Telegraph - and this was the incubator for Brexit - where some talked of a country where no one paid tax, NHS and public services privatised etc and I’d think well, good luck with that, but you’re talking about civil disorder, a break down of society.

These sort of ideas would make for good provocative pieces - gammon fantasies that played well with some readers - but no one in their right mind ever intended them to become government policy. This is why Johnson looked so shocked the morning after the EU referendum.

And I suppose Johnson had the choice then of admitting he’d conned the working classes who’d voted for it - and tried to reverse it - or, with all the rich old gammons egging him on, go along with this wicked hard right fantasy. It’s our tragedy he chose the second option.