But could this storm of bitter enmity and verbal violence ever become the real thing? Well, it has happened before.

In the long hot summer of 1642, England went to war with itself. The simmering conflict between King Charles I, an autocratic monarch convinced that he had Divine Right on his side, and an assertive Parliament equally certain that the Lord was with them was coming to the boil.

When Charles raised his standard in Nottingham on August 22nd, all over the kingdom men and women were forced to choose their sides.

London, then as now dominated by moneyed commercial interests, took Parliament's side, as did the South East. The West and Wales stood by the king, and the North split between the two sides.