Recently, while visiting a friend who is not the most gifted of chefs, I was surprised to be served a shop bought tarte tatin that was entirely raw.

When I tentatively enquired as to whether, perhaps, it might need to be cooked, the packet was retrieved from the kitchen, and the words “delicious hot or cold” were presented as the apparently watertight case for the defence.

Truly, it gave me no pleasure at all to turn the packet over to where the cooking instructions were nevertheless to be found, and it gives me even less pleasure now to concede that in fact, the friend* in question (*my mother) in fact sits at the vanguard of culinary invention.

Because it turns out, actually, that not everything that is aggressively marketed to the public as “oven ready” is actually meant to go in the oven.

When Boris Johnson describes his Brexit deal as “oven ready”, almost hourly for what felt like months on end, what it actually turns out to mean is that it won’t so much as even be waved in front of the smeg but tentatively forked at then thrown wholesale in the bin (in this regard, Brexit deals and tarte tatin are the same).

Yes that’s right. The “oven ready” Brexit deal, the Brexit pot noodle (“just add water” – just add bullshit), already is no more.

All of the pledges that Boris Johnson signed up to then begged the voters to please, just let him, sign and pass into law have already been tossed away. All the assurances on environmental protections, workers rights and so on and so on, have been tossed away.

It would be Michael Gove’s job to come to the despatch box of the House of Commons and explain the government’s “negotiating position” in its forthcoming trade talks with the EU. Which is to say, explain how it bears no relation to anything the voters have ever expressed an opinion on before.

Gove, of course, is the right man for the job. It is not yet four years since he gave what now stands a very serious contender for the most mendacious speech in British political history, the one where he explained how the chances of the UK leaving the EU without any kind of trade deal in place were about as likely as “Jean-Claude Juncker joining Ukip.”

It would be strange, for most people, to be a leading figure now, in a government with a huge majority, and to be very deliberately working to bring about the precisely disastrous outcome that you yourself promised could never possibly happen.

But then, most people are not Michael Gove, for whom life is just one long leader column, the world just an annexe on the back of the Oxford Union, where the debating can never be done. And Michael Gove’s got some new arguments to construct now, and nothing makes Michael Gove happier than that.

When all the world is a debate, nothing can ever be your fault. You can tell as many blatantly racist lies as you like to, say, win a referendum, all it’ll take is one university study about Brexit and “positive attitudes to immigration” and the slate’s wiped clean, the conscience you don’t have is clear and you’re ready to debate all over again.

Michael Gove’s got fresh lines to try now, fresh arguments. Lines like: “We will use our restored sovereignty to become a force for good in the world.”

Seriously. What is that even vaguely meant to mean? That under the yoke of EU membership, the UK had somehow been turned malignant? It’s just that it’s only right now that we’re an international joke, and for no greater reason than we were stupid enough to listen to Michael Gove.

Now we know, Michael Gove patiently explained, that Brexit’s all about the creation of 50,000 new customs officers, just to fill in forms that absolutely didn’t need to be filled in before Michael Gove came along, promising you there was absolutely no chance you could ever leave the free trade zone he’s about to make you leave for no greater reason than you were stupid enough to believe him.

Now it’s all about the hardest possible Brexit that can be achieved, about more tariffs, more regulations, about a giant leap not into the unknown, just directly back into the past.

There would be “no border in the Irish sea”, even though both he and Boris Johnson have both been abundantly clear that checks on goods will, without doubt, be required on exports between Northern Ireland and the mainland from next year.

But that was a different day, a different debate, a different truth, so who cares about that? Certainly not Michael Gove, and he certainly doesn’t care whether you care. Because you do care, you’re probably absolutely enraged about it but Michael Gove couldn’t give even the tiniest toss, because you haven’t won anywhere near as many debates in the Oxford Union as he has, so you can’t possibly be right and he can’t possibly be wrong. About anything. Ever.