Brett Ellis has no intention of buying a electric car

Now rebadged as ‘EVs’ as two-kitchen Ed tries to get down with the kids, they take hours to charge, are expensive to purchase, and the batteries are as kind to the environment as your local water company is to rivers.

So, as I, and many others, hold off in the hope that creepy Ed will see sense (he won’t) or that Labour will soon be out of power (more likely), I instead tootle about in my 1 litre ‘EcoBoost’ Ford Fiesta, where I spend more time weekly than I do with members of my own family.

The inside of our cars have their own microclimates and rules, and it is the driver’s domain where their rules go - end of!

My wife uses her car as a dumping ground where, if you can see the floor, it’s a good day as ground in Haribo sweets and leftover chicken bones make an unwelcome appearance when I begrudgingly give it a deep clean annually.

Brett Ellis argues with himself while in his car Some of us talk to ourselves in the car. I quite often have two-way conversations before snapping too and realising Cheryl, stuck in traffic in her Qashqai opposite, is looking at me perturbed as I badly pretend that I am singing along to Absolute 80s.

The car is good for a doze too, especially when being ‘Dad Cab’ waiting outside some nondescript former warehouse for your kids to finish trampolining or skating or some other activity with ‘ing’ on the end.

I always choose to lock myself in, not that anyone has ever tried to enter the confines, but this leaves me being rudely awakened by one of my kids, sweaty and incandescent with rage that I dared to take five seconds to answer their window knocks.

Within the microclimate, there are sub-microclimates, namely the glove box and boot.

There are items in the rear of my car that have been in situ for years and have never been used, but there they will remain ‘just in case’.

I have a spare pair of shoes in case the pair I am wearing at work spontaneously combust (I’m still waiting), two pool cues, some de-icer and one of those run flat tins that don’t work and do little but bang around the boot as I take a corner too hastily and leave me wondering what that pesky noise is.

Having visitors in the car is never a joy, as you are unsure of the rules.

Can you control the window? Do they allow drinks and food? And do we have to endure classic FM for the next three hours on the way to the coast, as we wish for silence, only to mask it over once we reach the hallowed land?

Brett Ellis is a teacher.