Even though it is a few years since I left school, it is hard to shake the sense that September is when a new year begins. The weather is beginning to turn and politics reinforces this impression with the return of Parliament after the recess and the theatre of party conference season.

Most years there's a pencil sharpening energy about this time of year as desks are returned to and plans are made. This year feels a little different. We are still living in the aftermath of the political convulsions of the early summer and this has a deadening effect, perhaps because so much political energy was expended then and because the scale of some of the challenges remains so daunting.