Politics is hard, oh how hard it is. The Reform Five led by Nigel Farage sat for three hours listening to a King’s Speech debate on Immigration, there in the ancestral centre of the nation’s politics.

For 180 minutes and endless bobbing to be called, they listened to an encyclopedia of mental illness.

They heard Government politicians promising “a decade of national renewal,” and “to halve serious violence in 10 years,” to solve the mental health crisis, and to create a new Britain where fabric conditioner wasn’t chained to supermarket shelves.

They heard the Home Secretary cackling in a way that would get Kamala committed.

They heard newly-elected Members make maiden speeches with the self-belief of psychopathic children. What couldn’t these first-time MPs achieve? A healthier, happier, wealthier nation forged in the spirit of service of “a-changed-Labour-Party” (all one word).

Three hours of it!

Nigel Reynard, the prominent fox of his party knows many things and will no doubt at some point find out what he is doing in this particular hen house.

His maiden speech was unlike any maiden speech of the day. It was concise, practical and sprang unbidden from his many years of practice. His only concession to tradition was to make it uncontroversial. The only way to deter illegal migrants, he said, was by deporting them promptly and as day follows night it was essential to leave the European Court of Human Rights.

There can be no arguing with that, clearly. Labour benches didn’t spontaneously applaud (that isn’t done) but they must have been tempted. Nigel had framed his argument in terms to thrill any Labour soul, and not just by invoking the name and blessing of David Blunkett.

The millions who had come since the hated Blair regime, he said, were the result of multinationals’ appetite for cheap labour; that the Government’s promised 1.5 million new houses wouldn’t make so much as a dent in the shortfall what with “a migrant a minute” making landfall; that rents had risen 25% because of massively increased demand; that the business model of the gangs would never be broken because, as with drugs, the rewards were too high – yes, up to €3 million per week.

Ten million arrivals, he said, had done more to affect the standard of living of working people than any other factor this century.

All in all, it was an amiable pitch to the Red Wall constituents of every other party, delivered with a modest deadliness that will increase in fatality the more amiably it is made.

It is uncertain whether this formidable operator will unite the Right. But on this basis he will certainly scramble the Left.