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Dave’s worried about black and Asian voters. That is, he doesn’t really worry about them as blacks or Asians. It’s their being voters that gives him sleepless nights.

To be more precise, Dave is concerned that ethnic minorities don’t vote Tory. Just 16 percent of them did the honourable thing at the last election, which just won’t do.

Just four days ago I bemoaned the fact that HMG in its wisdom is cutting the strength of our armed forces to a meagre 82,000. Now you may be worried that today’s title suggests an about-face so rapid it might cause a nosebleed.

Much as I appreciate your concern for my physical, and possibly also mental, health, I hasten to allay your fears. I’m reasonably healthy and, as far as I can judge, sane. That, however, is more than I can say for our country.

The British Tourist Board and the British government advertise the country in diametrically opposite ways. This is easy to understand for they pursue diametrically opposite ends: the former wants to attract visitors, the latter seeks to repel immigrants.

Having admitted at his trial to the rape of a 13-year-old girl, Adil Rashid, 18, was facing four to seven years in prison.

Yet Judge Michael Stokes suspended the sentence, for reasons that make one doubt not just his sanity but also that of our whole society. In fact, this case could provide a valuable diagnostic tool in any psychiatric examination. However, lacking medical qualifications, I’ll have to approach the stated reasons behind such lenience from other angles.

HMG’s decision to cut our army strength to 82,000, the lowest since William Pitt sat in Dave’s chair, dovetails neatly with its earlier commitment to cut policemen’s salaries. It also shows how little those who govern us understand the purpose of government.

The other day I suggested that Dave is a Cicero to Obama’s Demosthenes, and now he has delivered himself of a long-awaited oratory aimed at justifying such flattering parallels.

Even as Obama expanded his mandate beyond the boundaries of time by claiming obligations ‘to all posterity’, Dave has stretched his own remit in space, by insisting he wants ‘a better deal’ not only for Britain but ‘for Europe too’.

The film is based on the true story of Mark O’Brien, a poet and journalist rendered immobile by childhood polio. The only parts of his body he can move are his head and, well, that part.

One can’t help feeling like a Mediterranean denizen alive during the centuries separating the two greatest orators of antiquity. But in our fast-moving world the interval is shorter: Demosthenes (aka Obama) spoke yesterday; Cicero (aka Dave) will speak tomorrow.

It’s silly to expect historical accuracy from a history drama. Even historians get things wrong, so demanding scholarly rigour from a film would be both unrealistic and beside the point. Films are there to entertain, not to educate.

Misquoted and misattributed (by David Starkey among others, tut-tut), the line “when I hear the word ‘culture’, I reach for my gun” is gaining mass appeal these days.