Last February, the President of the European Council, Donal Tusk, said on Twitter: “I’ve been wondering what the special place in Hell looks like, for those who promoted #Brexit, without a sketch of a plan how to carry it out safely.”

When Russia’s fourth-term dictator President Vladimir Putin poured his particularly chilling scorn on the idea of liberalism last week his demeanour, his stone-cold certainty suggested he is not a man to tolerate opposition.