If you want a case study for how our current political system, dating mostly back to the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, with plenty of medieval remnants, is incapable of grappling with the issues of the 21^st, the Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill is it. This is the Bill that aims to strip regulatory safeguards from whole classes of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), the technology that has let loose fish with genes from sea anemones and jellyfish into vulnerable environments.

It’s what corporate agriculture – the owners of the giant factory farms, the multinational food manufacturers wanting uniform grains to go into tasteless ultraprocessed pap, desire. And what they want, they get.

The Bill raced through the Commons with scant serious challenge (despite the best efforts of Green MP Caroline Lucas and a handful of others), and almost no engagement with the fast-changing science of genetics.