There are several ways people can deal with challenges. It defines an individual. Take, for example, the outcome of last week’s votes.

After such a crushing government defeat, it is perfectly reasonable for the opposition leader to call a vote of no confidence in the government.

But when the government survives that vote of confidence, and the prime minister comes to the despatch box to encourage cross party talks to find a solution to the apparently unsolvable Brexit paradox, the leader of the opposition has a choice.

He could be the statesman, in this time of political and national crises, announcing he will work with the government to find a solution. Or he could be partisan, calling out that the government has created such an abomination of a mess that they must rely on the opposition to bail them out.

What no one expected was that he would tie his help to an undeliverable demand.

In saying that the only way he would offer advice was if the prime minister guaranteed that a no deal Brexit was taken off the table was to deliberately foster more uncertainty, more chaos, more risk to jobs and businesses simply for his own political benefit. Risk the many for the benefit of the few.

The number of people who want a hard, abrupt, no deal Brexit can be numbered on the fingers of a couple of hands. But to rule out no deal Brexit means either ruling in any deal, ruling out Brexit, or changing the law through parliament to stop no deal happening, which probably doesn’t have the support of the House.

But rather than see this error, the opposition are now frustrating getting no-deal preparations through parliament. This mess gets worse and worse.

It is impossible to know how this ends. I have been in meetings seeking solutions with the prime minister, working cross party to support our local manufacturing base, discussing how to support a sensible outcome to all this, and chatting with plotters trying to figure out how it all develops.

But whenever I meet with people, I always remember one thing: 45,000 households, 3,500 businesses, nearly 100,000 people, all rely on their local MP to make sure that after we leave the EU, they still have jobs, are safe, and can engage with the world as they see fit.

This isn’t just about political ideology: it is about real people’s lives.