So now we know. Twelve weeks before we commit ourselves to leaving the EU, the government is in such a secretive, indecisive muddle over what it wants that not even

the Queen or our former chief negotiator have been told what the country’s aims are. The Queen can only grumble in private at a prime minister’s unprecedented refusal to tell her any more than she can glean from the newspapers. Sir Ivan Rogers, appalled by the organisational chaos above him and ministers’ hostility to hearing uncomfortable truths, has thrown up his hands and walked away.

The style of Rogers’ departure is as startling as the fact. “It’s like losing England’s top coach just before the World Cup begins,” one experienced adviser said to me.

What’s