“No one,” say many EU remainers, “voted in the referendum to make themselves worse off.” To which I reply, “Oh yes, they did.” Loads of people voted to make if not themselves worse off, then certainly their children. Some are honest enough to admit as much.

I have crossed metaphorical swords with countless folk who felt “taking back control of our borders” as being critical to their decision to vote leave. “It’s too easy for people to get into our country,” they say. “We need to tighten our borders. We need to stop free movement. We need to pull up the drawbridge to Europe.”

Tightening our borders will mean huge delays at the ports. Dover modelled delays from 2-4 minutes resulting in 17 mile tailbacks. The Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has not denied that delays could be around 45 minutes per truck. The tailbacks will cover most of southern England if we go down that road. But we must tighten our borders, right? We need to get rid of the customs union. This will knacker countless companies who rely on just in time products reaching their factories, like the entire automotive sector. But we need to get rid of the customs union, right?

Then, we have those wretched foreigners who come over here from Europe and work, especially the those who work as doctors and nurses, for example. We need to stop this, even if we die prematurely. Cancer specialists they might be, but they are bloody foreign. If it means our own children cannot enjoy the rights we enjoyed, like living, loving, working, studying and travelling freely abroad, it’s just too bad, right? We need to look after our own first, unless they are the younger generation, many of whom happen to be our children.

You see, I don’t buy the argument that people didn’t vote to make themselves worse off: they did. And let’s not accuse all of them of being too stupid to know they were going to make themselves worse off because that’s just patronising.

Even if the buffoon-like PM Theresa May manages to cobble together some kind of deal to leave the EU in relatively soft terms, it will only be because she has kicked the can of detail down the road. Again.

Every type of Brexit will make the country worse off because Brexit itself will make the country worse off. So, what can we do? My answer to that is Christ alone knows.

The referendum campaign was between a bunch of right wing liars (Vote Leave and Leave EU) and a bunch of right wing scaremongers (Cameron, Osborne and the rest of the shower who tried to scare the British public into remaining instead of offering a positive outlook on Europe, the kind supported by Winston Churchill after World War II). No one spoke for those who believe strongly in internationalism and a united Europe. But who spoke before the referendum for blue collar England who voted to leave?

Years of grim austerity left millions of people feeling that they had been abandoned. And when the architects of their abandonment, who just happened to be the politicians who were in the spotlight urging the country to remain in the EU, spoke, large chunks of Britain spoke loudly by bringing about exiting the EU, despite the enormous act of self harm they had voted for themselves to endure. Those in places like Sunderland who voted to leave must also have known how a hard Brexit could destroy their good jobs at Nissan, but they wanted to lash out anyway. They understood the risks to education, to the NHS. They concluded it would all be worth it.

So, we must conclude that many people voted to make themselves worse off for what they saw was the greater good. They voted to stop free movement for foreigners and their own children, they knew the pound would collapse if we voted to leave, they knew that jobs would go. And now all of us must hang our future hopes on the worst prime minister this country has known in a century, a woman who leads a massively divided party which is at the mercy of free market vandals. And if they mess up, the only alternative is a hard left Labour Party offering a return to the 1980s and economic calamity.

It doesn’t look good, but let’s not keep repeating the lie that no one voted for the shambles that’s about to envelope the country. Many people did just that.

From my little balcony here in Praia da Luz, the beautiful blue sea of the Atlantic is right ahead of me. A small sailboat bobs up and down on the gentle swell. The silence is only disturbed, quite regularly it has to be said, by the swishing of the traffic along Luz’s one way system, as well as the leaves on the nearby trees as a warm breeze drifts across.

There are literally hundreds of apartments around the town and, it seems, they are largely unoccupied. I can see maybe 20 apartments from here and all are shuttered up.

It could be, quite simply, that it’s out of season here on the Algarve or maybe just in this westerly part of it. Judging from the planeloads of passengers who arrived at Faro on the same day as us, plainly the party resorts are not going to be empty.

I suppose I could suggest the great unsaid of Luz, the disappearance in May 2007 of Madeleine McCann. We are, through no deliberate intention of our own, very close to THAT apartment. We see it every time we leave our room, cross the road to the pool area. There it is. Truthfully, I do think about it a lot. Similarly, I think of the former Tapas bar, now a snackbar, where four wealthy and highly irresponsible families sat each night, their children in apartments which were not accessible without going onto the road outside the pool complex. It is not a subject anyone here raises with you. And why would they?

I’ve spoken to one person about it, a guy I now know as Ray whose face and voice I recognised from the 2017 Panorama ‘Madeleine McCann: ten years on’. Apart from telling me that the BBC edited out virtually everything he said, his view was that the whole tragic event was the fault of Madeleine’s parents. If the children had not been left unattended, this poor little girl would never have disappeared in a complex that, back then, when it was a resort for the very well off, offered free babysitting. There is not a single thing in Luz that tells you what happened. Not a poster, nothing. *

When we booked to come here, we obviously knew the history but assumed, from the size of the complex, which spreads out over numerous blocks, we’d never see the one from which Madeleine disappeared. We are not haunted by the history, it has not, in any way, affected our enjoyment. But the history is there, the history of a young girl who disappeared over 11 years ago and still no one has more than a theory of what might have happened.

I rather feel that the invisible shadow over Praia da Luz will never disappear. Millions, maybe billions, of people all over the world know about this story, a story with no conclusion. I have noticed that from the road at the far end of the pool, people do stop and stare and some take photos. It is not because the complex is especially photogenic – although the pool is very nice – but they do so because of the unsolved mystery.

Someone, somewhere knows what really went on at Apartment 5a. However, we are none the wiser as to what it was. That fuels the morbid fascination many feel over Praia da Luz and will do for generations to come.

I doubt that we shall return, not through the story that made Luz famous but because the place, whilst perfect for the R&R we needed, is more than a little dull, with few opportunities to make friends with other people, a key component of my holiday requirements. And it will always be that place where that happened.

* As I wrote this piece a day or so before returning to the UK, I found this to be incorrect, as you will see from the photo that accompanies this piece, but decided to leave the article as I write it at the time.

“Lots of people hate your daddy,” said anarchist Ian Bone to Jacob Rees-Mogg’s young son. “Do you know that?” With which Rees-Mogg acted like every good dad should, protecting his son from any chance of danger. Is the little boy ‘fair game’ because of who his father is? No, he bleeding isn’t.

Do I hate Jacob Rees-Mogg, the MP for the 19th century? Two things. I don’t know the bloke and hate is a very strong word. So, no I don’t hate him. Do I hate the system that allows those of great privilege to reach the commanding heights of society? Yes, I do. And do I hate – and I repeat, hate is a very strong word – what Rees-Mogg is trying to do to our country by supporting a hard, cliff-edge Brexit. Yes, of course. Christ, most Tories think like that, never mind soggy, liberal mainstream Labour voters like me.

We are talking about ideas, aren’t we? That’s different from talking about people. Granted, I hated, really truly hated, Margaret Thatcher – in fact, her death has not changed my feelings about her one iota – but it’s the ideas we should be challenging, not the young child of a right wing politician with ideas and views that would, if implemented, have devastating effects on the poor bloody workers.

And to see Rees Mogg’s family accosted by a worthless anarchist is as bonkers as it gets. Mr Bone does not believe in anything the rest of us believe in. He doesn’t believe in elections, or the very idea of democracy. He believes in anarchy which as philosophies go is more than a little loose and vague.

As well as being an anarchist, Mr Bone is a loud-mouthed bully and I hate – that word again – bullies. I hate bullies whether they are in the playground, whether they belong to the Football Lads Alliance, whether they the mafia-like thugs of the Labour and trade union movement or whether they are a one hit wonder band like Chumbawumba who think politics is enhanced by chucking a bucket of water over a genuinely working class deputy prime minister.

I was pleased that Rees-Mogg stood up to Mr Bone, as I was pleased when Rees Mogg stood up to the middle class luvvies at the UWE who recently tried to shout him down. He’s no hero. He’s upper class and proud of it, he’s a hypocrite who stores his money abroad to protect himself from the worst ravages of Brexit, he wants to extend the class divide, not close it. All of these things might appal your average Joe or Josephine but that’s the way life is and the only way to challenge these things is through argument, through debate and if they don’t work, by punching the other bloke’s lights out. I don’t really mean the last bit, there, but here I am in Jacob Rees-Mogg’s corner. And certainly his son’s.

One thing you – well, I – notice these days is how few women bathe topless. It used to be the norm for ladies to reveal their breasts in public. Those who didn’t appeared to be in the minority. No more. Now, modesty prevails. Except with men.

I admit to a certain bias here but I do believe that the male body is far less attractive than the female. Unless you are Daniel Craig, it’s best to hide many of your bits from view. This is not a view shared by an awful lot of men. Or a lot of awful men.

Polishing off my lunch today, I am in a snack bar near the pool. There are two older men with no shirts on. It is wrong on all sorts of levels.

Quite apart from the fact it looks terrible, it’s rude. Despite this being an establishment next to a swimming pool, it’s still somewhere you eat. You just wouldn’t dress, or rather undress, like that in somewhere, shall we say, more formal. Then why do it here? It doesn’t look nice, it’s dirty. Oh, and did I mention it doesn’t look nice. And one of them is singing along with Rod Stewart’s Maggie May.

I am no prude. I have been on plenty of naturist beaches in my time on this earth. But there is a time and a place for everything and indeed nothing. Put simply, I do not want a man’s breasts in my eyeline when I am eating my lunch. Okay? Put them away.

For many people, the name Praia da Luz means only one thing. The disappearance in 2007 of a young girl. At that time, the Ocean Club complex was part of the luxurious, upmarket Mark Warner chain. Today, many of the apartments, including the one in which we are staying, are privately owned and leased to Thomas Cook who now offer the accommodation to package holidaymakers.

There was no sense of the macabre when we booked to stay here. Portugal has been, for many years, at the top of out bucket list and having done our homework on both the complex and the resort, we were content that this was for us. And it is.

Arriving at Faro’s chaotic airport, we expected to be boarding a bus that would make umpteen stops along the way before arriving at our room in a time slightly longer than our two and a half hour flight. Not so. In fact, it appeared that we were the only people headed this way as our fellow tourists boarded buses to the more ‘lively’ resorts. So, a straightforward transfer along the toll road was all it took. Our flight left Bristol at 7.00am. By 11.30 we were unpacking.

The Ocean Club complex is a bit of a misnomer. It’s traversed by roads and pathways. For all the world, it looks like lots of different complexes. The buildings are uniformly white, the apartments are all shuttered and there are regular warnings to keep the shutters down at all times. Our ground floor apartment has two small balconies and below them a small area with a table and chairs. We have a large living room, a kitchen with industrial levels of facilities and cutlery, a decent bathroom and two bedrooms. It is well beyond our expectations. I write this in the early evening on the main balcony, drinking a lovely glass of Sagres, looking out on a well maintained garden area and the sea. A gentle breeze gently shakes the leaves on the trees, distant gulls wheel above us, Thundercat plays from my mobile music system and if there was a God (and may I remind you, there isn’t) he would be in his heaven.

We unpacked and decided to explore the complex and the resort. Lowering all the shutters and locking the triple locked door, we turned left, went along a short path, which opened onto a cul de sac and then a road. And there it was. Apartment 5A. We walked through the entrance to the pool and there was the former Tapas bar, now a snack bar. You know the rest.

I’ll be honest and say it was one of those “blimey, there it is” moments. We did not dwell, or take selfies, or anything crass like that. However, there was no escaping what was there and what happened there, whatever it was, and that we would be spending a considerable amount of time in this vicinity over the next two weeks.

What struck us immediately was the lack of people staying in the complex. It wasn’t just the overcast weather which greeted our arrival. The man at reception said it was “quiet”. He wasn’t kidding. We walked down the road in the direction of the beach, passing a number of bars and restaurants, as well as the obligatory Spar.

Luz is a very small resort, albeit one with a big name. There is a significant elderly migrant (expat) community here which speaks entirely in English. Some of the streets are a bit scruffy and dusty; most are flanked by holiday properties. The beach is long and sweeps towards the cliff that stands over Luz. To be fair, the beach is busy, too, with various watersports taking place.

The children have all gone home now and it’s mainly mature (old) people who are here. For them – and us, at least one of whom fits the ‘mature’ criteria, at least in age terms – it’s a leisurely regime of reading books, drinking beer, port, wine and pretty well anything else we can get our hands on. And eating.

Luz is not cheap. Part of this is undoubtedly because of the collapse in the pound since the UK voted to raise the drawbridge to Europe. The Euro is pretty well the same in value to the pound these days and it could get even worse. Last night, for example, we visited a ‘pub’ called ‘The Bull’ which purports to be British, but despite its largely British menu of roast dinners and fish and chips, appears to be entirely Portuguese run. A pint of San Miguel and a G&T came to a jaw-dropping €12, which is £12 in British money. Worse still, everyone smokes inside the pub. The old Brits love it!

Today, we sunbathed at the far end of the pool and I became aware of people stopping to take photos of the pool area from the road. Why would you do that? You don’t need me to explain anything else, do you? But, I suppose, they are only thinking what I am thinking when they gaze across the area. You can’t help it. I don’t want to speculate or theorise, at least not today, because Luz has had enough of it.

If you had arrived here from space, or had awoken from an 11 year dream, you would simply never know what happened here, as we say, whatever it was. For all that, I love it here and right now would not want to be anywhere else.