Over the course of a long friendship that began at school, my old pal Jacob Rees-Mogg, member of parliament and Roman Catholic – though not necessarily in that order – has subtly urged me to do three things. His urging does not come as a campaign of persuasion, merely as hints dropped into conversations over some 35 years. The first is to support Brexit, the second to move to Somerset and the third to become a Catholic.

I teetered on the edge of the first, even working for some time in my early 20s as personal assistant and wine pourer for Bill Cash MP, noted Eurosceptic and, incidentally, also a Catholic. But the vote came in 2016 and I let him down. I ticked “Remain” and there’s no going back.