Can more people please realise that we’re part of the world, a great way to solve the problems of an ageing population is to let in the working age immigrants who want to come here and that culture is a gloriously fluid thing that changes with each generation anyway, so we don’t risk losing our ‘unique British’ one.

The fact that immigrants contribute more to the Exchequer in taxes than they take out in public spending may surprise many Tory politicians, not to mention readers of the Daily Mail and other jingoistic tabloids. But this is one of the many important conclusions of detailed research commissioned by the Home Office and published this week in the first of a series of studies into the economic and social impact of immigration.

Meanwhile, it’s good to know I’m still eligible to be called a ‘young novelist’, and will be for another seven years. Now I just need to get published.