Isn’t it amazing how much money Boris Johnson has found down the back of that wine-soaked sofa he and his girlfriend had a shouting match about?

One dive into the cushions uncovered £2bn that he’s decided to spend on a no-deal Brexit.

A billion pounds. It doesn’t sound that much really, does it?

The word ‘billion’ gets tossed around so much these days, it’s almost meaningless.

Not long ago, it was big news if someone was a billionaire businessman or investor.

Nowadays, billionaires are all over the place – mainly in London.

Politicians chuck the word around on a regular basis - spending a billion here, two billion there, it’s easy to say, does it really matter?

Mr Johnson now wants to spend an extra £2bn on preparations in the case of a no-deal.

That’s two billion EXTRA on top of all the other money we’re spending on the possibility of a self-inflicted no-deal.

That’s money that could be much better spent elsewhere.

Money that is much-needed elsewhere.

A survey by the BBC at the last General Election looked at what £1bn could buy a government, I don’t think the figures will have changed much.

It could pay for 167,000 hip replacements or 1.4 million hospital day cases.

A billion pounds could also pay for two flagship hospitals, such as Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital which opened in 2010.

On mental health, £1bn would provide an eight-hour course of talking therapy for 2.5 million of us, or 750,000 eight-session courses of mindfulness therapy

In education, with £1bn the government could fund for a year 27,000 primary or 22,000 secondary school teachers, or give free school meals to 2.5 million children.

The average cost of a free school is £6.6m.

It could pay for two navy frigates – the type that we need to protect shipping in the Straits of Hormuz. Or 40 Challenger 2 tanks or 8,500 troops.

With £1bn the government could build 16,600 new social homes or 50,000 shared ownership homes.

So the question is, apart from all the chaos and confusion a crash and burn ‘no deal’ Brexit will cause the country – not taking into account its effect on the economy – is it really worth such a self-righteous pursuit of the cause?