How tired one gets of the well-worn cliché “the full-hearted consent of people”? What exactly is meant by this? Referenda for every important piece of legislation? If this was the case we would have no race relations act, abortions would still be illegal and hanging still be in force. All these laws were passed without this full-hearted consent nonsense but, if the polls are to be believed, in the face of a determined 70 to 80 per cent of the electors’ wishes to the contrary.

Those are not my words. They were published on the letters page of the London Evening Standard in March 1975. No, I do not spend my time poring over yellowed newsprint in search of ideas for this column. What makes this letter interesting is that, a day or two after its publication, it was cited with great approval by the then leader of Her Majesty’s opposition in the House of Commons.