Could we leave behind the Sophoclean tragedy – or the TV mini-series, whichever is your preferred cultural frame of reference – for a moment and try to talk sense about what has just happened? That is to say – about what the country has told us in terms so clear that they bowled over most of the principal players?

It is quite odd, when you think of it, how little attention is now being paid to the issue that is understood to be critical to the chaos in both major parties. This is presumably because it terrifies most serious politicians. Until Michael Gove’s speech on Friday launching his surprise candidacy, almost no one had made any significant comment about it at all.

Considering that the ostensible trigger for the forced removal of Boris Johnson from the Tory leadership contest were the words in his Telegraph column that dealt with precisely this toxic subject, and that it is also the presumed reason for Jeremy Corbyn’s catastrophic loss of support among Labour’s traditional voters in the North, I think it’s about time we discussed immigration (there, I’ve said it) in a grown-up way, don’t you?

What Boris actually wrote was: “It is said that those who voted Leave last week were mainly driven by anxieties about immigration. I do not believe that is so.” Whether this statement was factually accurate or not, it gave the impression that he was downgrading the importance of those anxieties in the interests, perhaps, of disassociating himself from the sort of people who express sympathy for them.