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Janice, who is unwilling or unable to open up, is not nearly as needy as her spouse, who starts espousing biblical platitudes with the desperate certainty of a drowning man grateful for any life raft.

Such cheerful platitudes would carry a taint of irony, in retrospect, when authorities exposed the harm and suffering they alleged had been inflicted under Guo's watch.

That’s never going to happen, and whatever compromises party elites could make to try to force it would amount to nothing more than a pile of platitudes.

Mr Means said he felt the minister had only provided "platitude after platitude".

But Tory shadow Cabinet Office minister Richard Holden urged the government to cut back on "bureaucracy" and described Labour's approach as one of "glib platitudes and broken promises with British taxpayers picking up the bill".