Last week, the speaker of the House of Commons ripped up the rulebook and changed procedure because, he claimed, not allowing MPs to vote for a ceasefire in Gaza would endanger them and their families. In other words, Parliament altered its rules under the threat of physical violence — something that would recently have been unthinkable in Britain.

I had been planning to write about the continuing global retreat of democracy. I was going to argue that 2024, the year in which more ballots are cast than ever before, is, in fact, seeing a further swing to dictatorship. I was going to condemn the disgusting cowardice of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered a prison hit in the manner of some mobster. I was going to describe how, in Pakistan, where Imran Khan’s party managed to win despite having been effectively proscribed, a returning officer resigned because of the massive fraud he was required to carry out against Khan, and an MP refused to take up his seat on the grounds that Khan’s candidate was the genuine winner. But the danger is closer to home than I had imagined. When mobs intimidate politicians, the Mother of Parliaments has crossed a line.