Imagine you are selling your house and have agreed a price with the prospective buyer. Then, days before you are about to exchange, you get a call. It’s the buyer. He has, he says, decided not to accept your price after all. He knows it is your final one and there won’t be any more forthcoming. But don’t worry. He has passed a motion. And the motion is clear. He completely rules out failing to do a deal with you.

I have attended many boring political meetings and witnessed many fatuous political acts. Student meetings, tiny party branch meetings, national executive meetings of failing political parties, cabinet meetings of governments heading towards landslide defeats.

And in all that time I have never participated in, indeed