For the last twenty years of her life, my mother suffered from Paranoid Schizophrenia. During her paranoid episodes, she was utterly, completely, absolutely convinced that everyone around her was setting 'traps' to 'prove' that she was a thief, in order to 'get me in trouble with the police'. At the same time, she believed that everyone was laughing at her.

No matter what we, her wider family, and friends did or said to show her she was mistaken, she 'knew' that she was 'right', and that we were all part of the plot against her. Utterly delusional, she was impossible to discuss rationally with, because she 'knew stuff' that the rest of us couldn't see. The frustration of trying to make her see sense, to see how mistaken she was, was almost unbearable. In the end, I'm sure we gave up trying, as we felt she was beyond help.

I get precisely the same feelings of frustration listening to the 'free unicorn with every pack of union-jack boxers' Little Englanders. They are beyond help.