“Car crash!” exclaimed managing director Andrew Varga, whose Brexit progress I have been following since the referendum. News of the latest Brexit U-turn landed on him on Tuesday out of the blue. All his years of preparation for a new UK product safety mark, all his thousands of pounds wasted, all the uncountable hours and effort were rendered pointless, at a stroke.

In rejecting EU funding programmes, Britain has jeopardised research and made itself far less attractive to overseas scientists.

The technology field will be hurt by the Data Bill and the breakdown of Horizon.

I’M not sure what I shudder harder at: how many times in this column over the years of the Brexit process and since that I have had to mention Boris Johnson – or how many times I will have to mention him in the future.