When Dominic Cummings was cycling around London after the 2015 general election, preparing the establishment of Vote Leave, he came to listen to a think tank panel discussion about the possibility of Brexit. I was on the panel and the venue was in Tufton Street. Afterwards, we had a brief and friendly conversation about the planning for the referendum and the concern of Unionists that a vote to leave could boost the SNP in its campaign to break up the United Kingdom.
Do not mention this reminiscence to Carol Clarification of the Observer, the tenacious reporter who has investigated Brexit endlessly. In the view of ultra-Remainers, Tufton Street is the Brexit Death Star, the heart of the evil empire, where think tanks of a centre-right disposition do their dastardly work to undermine civilisation. If you tell the social media conspiracy theorists that Dominic Cummings was in Tufton Street talking to me for five minutes about Scotland, then before we know it there will be a breaking story about Putin in a kilt, Brexit and the hitherto secret role of the Loch Ness monster.
