The penultimate nail was a House of Lords report on Brexit which echoed the TUC view that 'no deal' would be the worst deal possible.

But then on Sunday, Brexit Secretary David Davis appeared to resurrect the idea of 'no deal'. Maybe, as with the fictitious sectoral impact assessments, he simply hasn't read the two key texts.

First, the Lords report from the prestigious EU Select Committee*, which is titled Brexit: deal or no deal. It makes clear that a 'no deal' Brexit would not only be economically damaging, but would bring an abrupt end to cooperation between the UK and EU on issues such as counter terrorism, police and security and nuclear safeguards. It would also necessitate the imposition of controls at the Irish land border.

Both the CBI and TUC argued that the whole idea of 'no deal' was a misnomer, because it was simply impossible to exit with no agreements about anything. 'No deal' really means a series of minor deals covering all sorts of issues like air travel, nuclear materials, and so on. We doubt that such deals could be done by 29 March 2019, so it makes more sense for the government to make progress on negotiating a comprehensive future relationship than to lay plans for 'no deal'.

Then on Friday, we finally saw the joint report from the negotiators that had also been agreed with the Irish Government and (eventually) the DUP. This text (which is not the Withdrawal Agreement itself) contains a section on the Irish border containing the following key passage:

"In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement." (Para 49)

It's that phrase 'in the absence of agreed solutions' that led most people to the conclusion that 'no deal' was a dead duck. It means that, if no deal is concluded overall, the UK and EU will default, for the hundreds of issues that are covered by the Good Friday Agreement, to 'full alignment' with the Single Market and Customs Union.

Then up pops David Davis to explain that it doesn't mean that at all. He skated dangerously close to telling his negotiating partners (who also watch Marr, apparently - who knew?) that the agreement was just words. Though Number 10 swiftly slapped him down and he has now walked back his comments.

But Davis also said that 'nothing was agreed until everything was agreed' (which is also in the text), meaning that the passage about what would happen if there was no overall agreement would only apply if there was an overall agreement.

You may think we are now well and truly through the looking glass. In which case 'no deal' may come back to life to stalk the negotiations for a bit longer. Even though, as the House of Lords has concluded, 'no deal' is worse than any other deal.

*full disclosure: I gave evidence to the committee and am quoted in the report