How to write an economics polemic under such circumstances? How to argue about trade and geo-politics when an MP lies dead, her children bewildered, her husband in unspeakable pain?

I’ve written a weekly economics column for more than 20 years now, more than a decade in this newspaper. This one – so soon after Jo Cox’s death, yet just days before the referendum on Britain’s European Union membership – is easily the toughest.

My head is full of reasons I’ll vote Leave, reasons I still believe stand up to scrutiny. As this build up draws to a close, I also have plenty of telling anecdotes “from the campaign trail”.

What I can’t shake off, though, is the sense that, despite the looming vote, the public is utterly sick of this referendum: sick of “Project Fear”, sick of finger-wagging “experts”, sick of the battle between infantile virtue-signaling and feigned offence-taking among our political and media classes.