During the long, hot summer, wasn’t it lovely to find brief respite during the World Cup, as conversations by the water cooler turned to something other than Brexit? Sadly, all too soon England was flying home, France was parading the trophy down the Champs-Élysées and prime minister Theresa May was endeavouring to sell a Brexit plan that was less popular within her own party than it was with some of the opposition. Strange times.

The drip, drip, drip of negative news regarding the inability of those in power to see how economic confidence is inextricably linked to perceived political competence is astounding

We are now at the worrying stage when the government feels it necessary to write to us on a monthly basis warning about what could happen if we crash out of the EU with no deal. In such an event Dominic Raab, the new Brexit supremo, apparently proposes to turn the M26 into a lorry park, force a quarter of a million small businesses to start preparing customs declarations for the first time, and ready the armed forces to move food and medicines round the country. This must be what “taking back control” and “strong and stable” mean.

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