Contemplating a return from the festive break, one cabinet minister was short on Christmas spirit last week: “The next few weeks are going to be hideous.” When MPs disappeared a fortnight ago, Theresa May’s aides had hoped that a period of reflection would encourage more Tories to support her Brexit deal in the vote, already delayed, due on January 15.

“The hope was that MPs would go home and consume much milk and honey and return with a different perspective. But that doesn’t seem to have happened,” one of May’s team conceded. Another said: “The people with Brexit indigestion are still dyspeptic.”

May has about 10 days to find the political equivalent of Gaviscon during perhaps the most turbulent period in British politics since 1940.