Picture the scene, it’s Monday morning, the ERG, DUP and Geoffrey Cox finally reach agreement – they’ll support the deal. A motion is tabled. Anticipation and excitement build overnight, the debate is due to start, and then…the Speaker declares there cannot be a third vote on the deal because it breaks parliamentary convention.

He can do it. On Wednesday, Angela Eagle MP, outraged that the Government intended to have yet another vote on the deal despite being decisively defeated twice, asked the Speaker to rule it out of order.

Eagle was referring to the "same question, same session" convention: that a motion which is the same, in substance, as a question which has been decided previously in the same session may not be brought forward again. It’s the parliamentary equivalent of the double jeopardy rule.

The Speaker’s response, for once fairly business-like, was that “a ruling would be made about that matter at the appropriate time”. Inside, he may have felt a shiver of anticipation. It put the Government on notice that he, the Speaker, may not allow a third meaningful vote.

One likes to think that the Speaker, despite an abysmal record, would take this moment to prove that he is capable of acting impartially, but I confess I’m less than certain. I am though not his biggest fan.