I didn’t want Scotland to leave the union, but I nevertheless feel obscurely sad at the result. The 45% who so passionately wanted independence must be devastated.

In the wake of the referendum result, listening to inevitable carping comments about London, I am reminded of an old bumper sticker ‘Don’t complain about farmers with your mouth full’. I wish someone clever would come up with something equally pithy about slagging off London while accepting the tax haul it brings in.

All this talk of constitutional change allows fascinating thought experiments. If London and the south were given the opportunity to vote for independence from the rest of the UK, there wouldn’t be any dithering about with 45%. We might shed a wistful tear over York, Harrogate and Durham but, let’s face it, no one is going to lose any sleep over Oldham, Worksop or Hull. We would vote one day and be out building the wall the next. Or, as Nick pointed out, we would more likely be paying some Polish guys to build the wall for us… And the next time someone started yantering on about the north/south divide we could just point out the window and say ‘There it is. Visible from space apparently.’.