At Conservative Party Conference in October 1980 Margaret Thatcher said in a famous speech that won’t go away: “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.”

Ever since then, and perhaps even before, the press has had an obsession with anyone seen to do a u-turn, to, horror of horrors, change their mind.

It is taken as a sign of a weak will, of a wishy-washy lack of convictions.

Other scandals may pass unnoticed so long as you are on the right team, but they’ll get you for that one.

It’s a uniquely British obsession, I think.

At the moment, Gareth Southgate is getting it in the neck for all varieties of u-turns – real and imagined.

In The Guardian, Jonathan Liew manages to criticise him for not changing his mind, then for changing it, then for changing it too slowly, then for cutting lose and changing it too quickly.

This is after a game they won. So they aren’t saving much ammo for when he actually loses.

(Football reporters are the worst of the hack breed. They all need a stint doing a proper job.)

England have already qualified for three quarter-finals in the last four tournaments, a record with which few can compete. Maybe the England manager knows what he’s doing?

No, he’s a flip-flopper, and must be a fool.

The new government is inevitably going to change its mind about some policies as events emerge, and reality intervenes.

Today Labour said it will lift the Tories’ “absurd” ban on onshore windfarms.

That already looks, on day one, like a policy at risk of at least a partial reverse ferret, either because of hostility or practicality.

Businesses are going to have to do similar somersaults in reaction to government policy. Their flaks will be desperate to explain that these aren’t u-turns, but rather part of an evolving strategy.

Much has been made lately of the civility of our politics compared to America, largely because Rishi Sunak managed to do a polite exit speech.

One way it could definitely get more adult would be if hacks stopped looking for u-turns around every corner, or took it calmly rather than hysterically when they emerged.

Every climbdown isn’t “humiliating”. Few of them require someone’s head on a plate.

Flaks in politics and in business could toughen up too. Yes, we changed our mind, they could say to the Daily Mail.

So what?