The prime minister is in a much stronger position on Brexit than it seems. As a pro-Brexit critic of her infuriating, timid, tortoise-like approach, I might be thought the last person to express this view, but I was reminded that Theresa May has the hardest Brexiteer MPs by the proverbial short and curlies when listening to the mellifluent warblings of Jacob Rees-Mogg, shop steward of purist Leave MPs, yesterday morning on what he would term the wireless.

After a lot of entertaining Jesuitical talk and references to duelling pistols, Mr Rees-Mogg was forced to the nub of it when asked about the customs union and reports that 60 or so Tory MPs will withdraw their support for Mrs May if she persists in proposing a