It is ever more apparent that Hooting Yard needs to be both robust and transparent. I want to move the debate forward, and that is why I am making arrangements for someone – possibly the octogenarian crone Mrs Gubbins – to clamber up a ladder on to the roof of a large and imposing building and to shout, through a loudhailer, a robust and transparent message. The message will be shouted in a transparently robust manner, from behind a transparent screen, made of robust glass. It’s a big ask, but I think it’s important to begin the conversation. One benefit of such robust transparency is that we might, as a result, be invited into the government’s big tent of all the talents. Asked to predict the likelihood of this, our resident prognosticator Little Severin The Mystic Badger scrabbled around in a pile of twigs and muck and came to no definite conclusion. Perhaps he is insufficiently robust. Nor, of course, is he transparent, being a badger.