When the Emperor of Japan announced in a radio address in August 1945 that the Second World War was over, he used a polite formulation that was the model of diplomatic understatement. The war, Hirohito told listeners, “has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage”. This was a gentle way of breaking it to the proud Japanese that they had lost.

Wounded Brexiteers, bruised as we are by the ignominious defeats of recent weeks, and deflated by the horrible realisation that the result of the 2016 referendum is in the process of being set aside by a Remain-dominated Commons, are also best addressed gently. The civil war in parliament has developed not necessarily to Brexit’s advantage.

Those diehard Brexiteer Tory MPs who assured their colleagues that