In the fable of the boy who cried wolf there are two obvious lessons, although one tends to be cited more frequently than the other. Aesop describes a shepherd boy raising a false alarm repeatedly. When a wolf does eventually turn up, the boy is not believed by the villagers and the sheep in his care get eaten. The moral is: don’t issue false warnings, because you might not be believed when it matters.

The second, equally important lesson in the context of Brexit and the deplorable shambles at the heart of the British state, is that there was a wolf. And the sheep got eaten. The final warning of potential disaster was worth listening to after all.

Aesop’s tale comes to mind when listening