This past week must have been much longer inside Downing Street than outside. First, Damian McBride, the prime minister’s strategy adviser, was exposed proposing to spread vicious unfounded smears about opposition politicians. Then, a police investigation into whether Damian Green, a Conservative opposition MP, had broken the law in receiving leaked documents from the Home Office ended this week. The judgment of prosecutors, that there was no case to answer, embarrassed Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, who should have put an end to the investigation earlier.

It is telling that British political debate is turning on puerile character assassination attempts and on how much time the police wasted pointlessly probing Mr Green’s affairs. Parties have not been setting out what they think the state should do – and what the state should stop doing. Yet if there was ever a time for fresh ideas and ideology, it is now.