The reason a party like the British Conservatives has been so dominant over such a long period is that it has sometimes been quite brutal with itself about coming into line with the society it represents and also been open to new ideas. The brutal bit for the moderate Left is they need to join the voters in rejecting uncontrolled immigration and the further loss of national sovereignty.

Once they do that, they can get a hearing again, and start on the new ideas. Is it so difficult to come up with a social democratic vision of how to cope with the wave of change heading our way in technology, work and education so that inequality isn’t widened and European countries don’t fall behind the US and China? Perhaps it is, but shouldn’t someone among Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham, Chukka Umunna, or just someone in this country or the rest of Europe actually try?

If they don’t do it quickly, the centre-Right parties and Macron lookalikes will get there first. If they don’t do it at all, populism and nationalism will keep marching on all over them. Then we will not just be reading two more chapters in the death of the moderate Left, as we are this week. We will be closing the book. And the only mystery will be why they carried on letting it happen.