APOLOGIES to the consumer testing bods at Which?, but it turns out that I will not be requiring access to your report on stick vacuum cleaners after all.

In the very definition of first world problems I have been swithering over buying a new vac for ages. Certainly I could do with topping up my middle class credentials – far too much turning the heating on lately – by acquiring a certain well known brand of vacuum, should its Which? rating be suitably high, of course. All this I know.

But, like Theresa May, I am adamant in my position. In common with DUP leader Arlene Foster, my red line on this is blood red. I do not care if the Dyson Cyclone V10 Absolute, price £449.99, mends the holes in the ozone layer, brings world peace, and whistles Dixie. Mr Dyson, or Sir James if you prefer, you can stick your stick vacuum cleaner.

The inventor who has done for household appliances what Apple did for home computing has upset a lot of people over his decision to move his company’s headquarters from Wiltshire to Singapore. Still, companies do this all the time. Globalisation is a fact of business life.

Yet when the owner of this particular business is an arch Brexiter who has spent the past two years arguing that UK is perfectly placed to thrive outside the EU, and that a no-deal Brexit would not be the end of the world, the decision to up sticks for Singapore is, like Sir James, more than a bit rich.

It is not exactly casting a vote of confidence in Britain plc. On the eve of next week’s crunch Commons vote, it is more like blowing a raspberry in the country’s face.

We should hardly be surprised at Dyson’s latest move. It has been obvious for some time which way the wind is blowing for the firm – eastwards. Last October, the company announced that as with the rest of its products, it would be manufacturing its electric cars in Singapore.

It already makes the lion’s share of its profits in Asia, where buying a “Dyson”, whatever the product, is a middle-class rite of passage.

Defending the move, Jim Rowan, Dyson chief executive, denied it had anything to do with Brexit. As for benefiting from Singaporean corporation tax rates 2% lower than the UK rate of 19%, Mr Rowan said the tax difference was “negligible for us”.

One estimate puts the loss to the Treasury at £60 million a year, quite a chunk of change, but Mr Rowan is right to put this in perspective. At the same time as the Singapore HQ move was announced, it emerged that Dyson’s core profits in 2018 had glided past the £1 billion mark. In that context, £60m is a small hill of beans. Talk about a good day to bury good news (for some).

For all the firm’s reassurances, including a promise of further investment in the UK, where more than a third of the company’s 12,000 staff are employed, the reaction was swift and almost uniformly condemnatory.

Downing Street was conspicuously quiet, save for saying it had not been made aware of Sir James’s decision to move his HQ. Some MPs have been more forthcoming. Former Conservative business minister Sam Gyimah said it was a “betrayal of the public who put their faith in him as a British business advocating no-deal Brexit”, while the Lib Dems’ Layla Moran and Labour MP Wes Streeting called the move hypocritical.

Social media took the development in its usual restrained stride, with plenty of jokes about “moral vacuums” and such.

Dyson is not the only firm busy making plans for life after March 29. Sony’s European head office is packing up and moving to Amsterdam from London. P&O is to switch the registration of six of its cross channel ships from the UK to Cyprus to head off possible delays after Brexit, and to keep EU tax advantages.

There were more reports of retailers, including Pets at Home, stockpiling supplies. This is what it has come to: on March 30, the day after B-Day, it will be raining hungry cats and dogs in Britain.

It might almost be comical if it were not so tragic and alarming. If not the wails of underfed pets, or the increasingly alarmed cries of business, what will wake Mrs May up as she sleepwalks to the exit, dragging the UK with her?

There were signs of movement yesterday, for good or possibly ill. Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg said “any deal would be better than not leaving at all”. This could signal the beginning of a return to the fold for hard Brexiter MPs and the DUP. It is hard to see what concessions could have been promised, however, given the EU has ruled out putting a time limit on the backstop, and has said in general that it will not reopen negotiations on the Withdrawal Agreement. Something has rattled cages, though.

That “something” is likely the amendment, tabled by Labour’s Yvette Cooper and Conservative MP Nick Boles, to stop the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

Labour looks to have finally come to a decision, saying it is now “highly likely” to support Cooper-Boles, and by extension a delay to Brexit until a better, softer, deal can be struck. The numbers appear to be in favour of the amendment passing, but Mrs May has denied her MPs a free vote, whatever force that holds these days.

Little wonder Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, went into Number Ten last night unconvinced Mrs May was listening to any of the voices offering solutions, despite the Prime Minister’s promise to work across the political divides.

In justifying the Dyson HQ move, chief executive Jim Rowan said it was ultimately about “making sure we are future-proofed”. Whatever happened to making sure the UK was future-proofed? It would seem that planning ahead for the best outcome is no longer seen by the UK Government as one of its core responsibilities. Instead of moving confidently it lurches from day to day, crisis to crisis, vote to vote.

It is no way to run a government, no way to run a business, no way to run a damn thing.