Let me get something out of the way: Greg Williams, you need to talk to people rather than firing off money-wasting information requests and picking fights in these pages. Get on the phone to Derek Beer and you will quickly understand how active he has been on the fraught issue of Shaftesbury’s pedestrianisation. It is fraught because it ain’t easy and people have very polarised views on the subject. Situation normal.

We, in the centre-ground of politics, watch with mixed feelings the swirl of theory and dogma, of slogan and mantra that surrounds us. The people and party in power are damaging themselves, for sure. The concern is that the country is also being damaged, people are being hurt and enterprises are going under due to the instability, indecision and palpable lack of capability evinced by this crew.

What would I like to see? A General Election now. As a third Tory Leader this year, Rishi Sunak has no mandate from the people and a parliamentary majority owed to a discredited figure and the trainwreck of Brexit promises. That is the past. We need to look to the future in a time of peril. We need a sturdy, well-made tiller for the ship of state, some decent hands on it and an agreed and purposeful course which is sensible, fair and positive.
My first mortgage was at an eye-watering – the word of the moment – 15 per cent. That felt okay because I had just come back from working in a country moving from dictatorship to democracy where inflation was close to 100 per cent, where begging had come back to the streets, where crime was rampant and the rule of law was close to disintegration.

It happens in the best of places where government loses touch with reality; where villages turn inwards to support themselves as best they can; where the towns are depressed and grey as economic activity declines and where the best people leave; where the cities become downright dangerous away from the tourist areas; where workers only look out for number one; where the nation becomes xenophobic, where borders become ramparts not gateways and global issues become matters for others.
We need to wake up, reset and re-energise. A General Election is how to do that even if the result becomes a requirement for consensus. For a consensus, policies and plans must be inclusive and well-thought-through so others buy into them – there’s a novelty. You must listen to the policies and plans of others. You then engage your combined understanding and experience to find the way ahead using the best practitioners. It is called management. It is how the best organisations work. It is the route to stability and sustainability.
The alternative? More see-saw, zig then zag, chaos and uncertainty.