Just once in a while, in the middle of a complex and difficult political muddle, there can come a moment when the voice of common sense can be heard above the clamour, ringing with the blessed clarity of a bell from a church steeple. “What I want,” said the plaintive voice of a woman on the radio this week, “is for all this nonsense to stop.”

I didn’t catch her name. (It wasn’t Theresa May, although it might have been.) This was the successor to Brenda from Bristol, she who said: “You’re joking! Not another one!” on being told last year that the country was going to the polls for the third year in succession.