No one – wants- to vote Tory, any more than they did in 2005, when Brown portrayed a vote for Labour as a vote for the guy who always had and always would hate Tony Blair more than anyone else in the country, and won Labour another term in office on those terms. But giving the country another term of Blairite policies, only without the talent for PR, Brown has handed the Tories an almost certain victory next year.

All the Tories have to do – and which they are doing – is keep their policies vague, the bulk of their shadow front-bench off TV, and wait for the protest votes to pile up in their favour. Then they’ll claim a mandate for the kind of extremist right-wing slash-and-burn policies Thatcher only dreamed of, rightly confident that Labour will tear itself apart for a couple of election cycles in a civil-war between the New Labour rump and genuine Labour challengers.

In the meantime, the nation gets another round of those tasty shit-sandwiches.

Personally I would have wound down the window of my rolls and asked: “Pardon me, would you have any Gray Poupon?”

But of course.