Clive George wrote:

stupid question What is the earth sleeving for? Purely saying "this is
earth, not some live wire which has just lost the insulation", or more?

That, and more. It prevents problems when you fold the wires up into a
back box. An uninsulated wire would be able to make contact with things
it should. In the case of contact with the live it would trip a breaker
or blow a fuse, but contact with the neutral could cause a number of
more subtle problems like nuisance tripping of a RCD.

--
Cheers,

John.

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