As one battles on, a reluctant volunteer in the culture war which the left is fighting on every front with enviable efficiency, it is frustrating that the millions who hate what is happening are not being properly led. On the whole, government responses are reactive rather than proactive, and late at that.

Boris Johnson said the right things about BLM supporters’ defacing of the statue of Churchill, but almost a week after the event. In the row about ‘Rule, Britannia’ at the last night of the Proms, Sir Keir Starmer actually got in before Boris, backing the traditional last night, in a soft-focus way, as being ‘a staple of the British summer’. Only then did the Prime Minister rather breathlessly enter the fray. He complained of ‘wetness’ about our history. That is misplaced: the attacks on our history are not wet, but fiercely pointed and carefully planned. They need coordinated resistance.