Nothing should surprise us anymore.
And yet it was still utterly startling to hear confirmation this morning that the Prime Minister intends to drag the Queen into a full-scale constitutional crisis and shut down the entire basis of our democracy - just to get his way.
We now live in a world where the US President vying to get the next meeting of the G7 world leader summit to be held at his own Miami hotel is not the craziest political thing to happen this week.
For years now those people calling for a second referendum to try and break the turgid Brexit deadlock have been decried as 'undemocratic' and 'enemies of the people.'
Yet here we have a Prime Minister who has been in office since late July, who was elected by the votes of just 92,153 Conservative party members, intending to close down the symbol of our country's historic and greatly envied democratic system at the most crucial time in our post-war history.
I can already hear the cries of 'he is just enacting the will of the people'. What nonsense.
It is absolutely true that nobody voted for the chaos and pain of a no deal departure from the European Union.
They key architects of the leave campaign regularly told us during the 2016 campaign how easy it would be to achieve a good deal with our European partners - and actually spoke of the many risks of a no deal departure.
Those who voted to leave did so after being told of prosperity - not food and medicine shortages.
They did so after being told of Parliamentary sovereignty - not the suspension of democracy.
Yesterday opposition party leaders came together to devise a workable way to stop a chaotic no deal scenario.
They compromised, dropped ideas and worked with people they don't particularly like to try and find a way forward for the common good.
That is what politics should be about - these people are aware of everything that could go wrong if we crash out on October 31, of how this could affect the most vulnerable people in their own constituencies.
They are elected representatives of the people. To attempt to block them from playing their democratic roles is as astonishing as it is disgraceful.
Make no mistake about it, Boris Johnson is acting like a dictator.
He evidently will stop at nothing to get what he wants - including the deeply unconstitutional and frankly unfair move of dragging the Queen into the political mire.
She has always maintained her neutrality throughout her reign.
Whichever side of the Brexit argument you sit on - you should be deeply offended and absolutely afraid of what this Prime Minister is attempting to do here.
The House of Commons has been in position for hundreds of years.
Our current Prime Minister has not yet been in power for five weeks.
He cannot be allowed to erode an institution that lays the base for our entire way of life for his own political gain.
