I'm not sure it is useful to lump all of corporate Britain into a homogenous corporate right. From my experience of it - admittedly not at board level - Labour, especially under Blair, wasn't seen as a threat, and the Tories were seen with a somewhat jaundiced eye.

Brexit came after my working career there but I would imagine most of mainstream industry was horrified by the disaster capitalism in represented. There would always have been Tory legal, financial, and marketing types for whom Boris was a merry jape, but losing access to the single market was not their idea of fun.

These are the guys who are going to have to close down businesses and make people redundant if it all goes pear-shaped. They have little to gain personally from this as their careers could be on the line as well. And must would have been pretty contemptuous of city slicker vulture capitalists.

Most were pretty careful not to be too overtly "political" and were pretty pragmatic about dealing with the economic choices that are presented there way. Some may have indulged in nativist fantasies that Britain could outsmart the Europeans and have the best of both worlds - the advantages of membership without the costs.

But Boris was never seen as much more than a clown, and Brexit has now gone way past the joke. They are keeping their heads down and hoping for the best, but more in hope than confidence. Most, I suspect, know by now that this is not going to end well. But few, I think appreciate just how bad it could get.

Recreational triumphalism has turned out to have costs after all.

Index of Frank's Diaries