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Suella is sorry. Sorry that her party didn’t listen to the great British public, which put her party in power. But who does she mean by the great British public? Clearly, she doesn’t mean me, and probably not anyone who voted Liberal Democrat, Labour or Green — that coalition of wokerati that represent the other half of the British public.

To whom is she sorry? To anyone worried about hospital waiting times, care of an elderly relative, a substandard education system, the cost of a university degree, the ever increasing price of food, the state of our roads, the raw sewage released into our rivers?

Or just to the growling commentariat agitating against people like her and her parents, who settled on these shores to build better lives for themselves? Is she sorry that she couldn’t build a time machine to put her parents on a ship to Rwanda, and put an end to inbound migration for good?

I’m sorry that you didn’t listen to us too. And I’m sorry that you’re still not listening, as you vow to take your party even further to the right. Yes, indeed, there are people who would like that very much. Perhaps the 14% of the electorate which voted for Reform. But what about the 12% which voted Liberal Democrat?

Has it not occurred to you that you constantly berating us for what we are — and what your own family very much is — is part of the problem? Most of us are not living monocultural lives, holding fast to a contrived patriotism dreamed up in the news room of the Daily Telegraph.

I’m sorry that your vision for Britain is so limited. Limited to soundbites which win the approval of your sponsors. Perhaps you will be the new leader of the opposition in the not very distant future, and will use your platform to fill the airwaves with your rabid bile.

Soon enough we will all discover that you’re still not listening. Not to the great British public as a whole. Just to those voices which sound like yours. Those intolerant voices who will support you as a useful idiot for as long as it serves them, but who will gladly deport you too in the end.

If you want to listen, listen well. What was the former prime minister’s greatest crime according to the dissenters you insist on giving prominence? Read their forums. Watch their videos. Read their social media posts. It wasn’t his economic policy, that’s for sure.

If you’re sorry, it ought to be about the state fourteen years of Conservative government has left the country in. Be sorry for that legacy. Be sorry for disenfranchising whole swathes of the country, for rising child poverty, and for the unprecedented reliance on food banks.

Be sorry for sweeping cuts, the brutalism of austerity, for palming public services off into the third sector, and for the perilous state of public sector recruitment. If you were listening, you’d know what the major concerns of the great British public really are.

But, of course, you’re not listening, are you? And nor are you really sorry.