Lord Hoffmann, then a Law Lord, once described the historic picture of the judge as ‘old, white, male, geezers’ sitting passively in court, adjudicating as does a cricket umpire. Given that I’m the first two of those, old and white, it is a particular privilege to be with you today.

That stereotypic picture might suggest leadership is the last thing on the judicial mind. But if Lord Hoffmann casts his eye over judicial diversity statistics he’ll find that whilst there is still progress to be made, he can cheer up. And any disgruntled geezer rump will find there’s only one way this line on the graph is going.