Monday

On days like this in parliament, the job of a sketch writer becomes straight reportage. First came the news that the prime minister was planning to bring recess forward by five days in the misguided hope that her Tory MPs would go back to their constituencies and stop conspiring to precipitate her downfall. So eager was she to remain in her job that it hadn’t occurred to her that MPs awarding themselves longer holidays when the country is facing its biggest existential crisis since the second world war might not go down well with most people. Then it turned out that in order to get the customs bill through the Commons, the government had accepted four wrecking amendments put forward by members of the European Research Group that openly contradicted the prime minister’s Chequers’ agreement – a pact that had already split the cabinet and the Tory party the previous week. Even more bizarrely, the junior defence minister, Guto Bebb, then found himself in the position of having to resign from the government so that he could vote for what had been government policy only hours earlier. I’m currently starting to write a Brexit satire and I’m already worried it will read as non-fiction.

Tuesday

I do have some things in common with Theresa May. We both had fathers who were vicars. We both know the best way to do Brexit is not to do it at all. We are both hopelessly uncomfortable in large social gatherings. Luckily I have chosen a job where the latter isn’t a problem. So I was able to avoid the annual drinks party for lobby journalists at No 10 for the fifth year in a row and skip off home to watch TV. The prime minister wasn’t so fortunate and friends who went reported that she looked miserable throughout. Several tried to engage her in conversation but found each one petered out into an awkward silence within seconds. Was Donald Trump the same in private as in public? Yes. Did she enjoy the football? She had watched the last minutes of the Croatia game on a phone with Angela Merkel. What team had Merkel supported? Blank. Was she enjoying the cricket? She hadn’t been to the cricket, so couldn’t say. The only subject that made her the slightest bit animated and prompted a reply of more than one sentence was the tennis. She had liked watching the men’s Wimbledon final. Though it was a pity it had been so one-sided. Those who know her well reckon it’s probably the only thing she’s really enjoyed in the past year.

Wednesday

Anna Soubry, the Tory MP and leading campaigner for the UK to remaining in the single market and the customs union, has argued that the country needs a government of national unity to navigate its way through Brexit. Watching Theresa May failing to give any straight answer to the question “Will we or won’t we expect the EU to collect our tariffs?” in front of the liaison committee, made me think Soubry might have a point. The liaison committee is made up of the chairs of each of the Commons select committees – each of whom could be relied on to do a better job than the minister whose patch they watch over. Just think of the improvement. Yvette Cooper instead of Sajid Javid for home secretary. Hilary Benn rather than Dominic Raab for Brexit secretary. Sarah Wollaston, not Matt Hancock, in charge of health. Tom Tugendhat, not Jeremy Hunt, at the Foreign Office. Chris Grayling gone at transport and replaced by Lilian Greenwood. OK, so Julian Lewis as defence minister wouldn’t be ideal. But let’s face it, even my dog could do a better job than Gavin Williamson.

Thursday

Rightwing commentators have diagnosed a new psychiatric condition among liberals who they believe respond irrationally to the US president’s statements and actions. Trump derangement syndrome. I fear I may even be suffering from it myself. Indeed it’s hard to know how anyone can respond rationally to Trump when his whole purpose in life is to gaslight the planet by saying one thing one day and then denying it the next.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump: ‘I scored a hat-trick in the final’. Putin: ‘So did I.’ Photograph: Yuri Kadobnov/AFP/Getty Images

The day after his press conference with Vladimir Putin earlier in the week, the president brought this tactic to new levels of insanity when he insisted that when he said he saw no reason why Russia would have interfered in US elections, what he actually meant was he saw no reason why Russia wouldn’t. Follow the logic and the world unravels fairly quickly. It now turns out that when I said“I do” at my wedding what I actually meant was “I don’t” and that I haven’t actually been married for 33 years. And any defendants who plead not guilty can clearly now be sent down without a trial. Worryingly, it seems Trump’s habit has been adopted by our own government. Just look at the chief whip’s explanations for why Brandon Lewis broke the pair with Jo Swinson for the crunch vote on the customs union. First deny it ever happened, then claim it was a genuine error, then say it was perfectly normal because he hadn’t meant to order anyone to break that pair, just several others. In a normal world, the chief whip and Lewis would have been sacked. But Theresa May doesn’t bat an eyelid.

Friday

One of the more idiotic pieces of popular advice I ever heard was what to do if you found yourself in possession of the the last two remaining copies of one of the world’s most sought after books. The answer – clearly meant to demonstrate how a true market place worked – was to burn one of them so that the other would be worth more than the pair combined. This always felt wrong on so many levels, not least logic: why not donate one to the British library so that academics could study it and you would still be left with the only copy commercially available? But it’s a policy that the fashion chain Burberry appears to have taken to heart. Rather than sell off some end-of-line clobber that nobody wanted at discounted prices, Burberry have burnt more than £28m of stock over the past year, presumably to make sure that their clothes are not worn by the wrong kind of people. The rationale is probably that the people with more money than sense that usually dress head to toe in Burberry would have heart murmurs at the idea of bumping into people of limited means in the same clothes. A rather more charitable solution would have been to cut out the labels and then donate them to a refugee camp in Syria. That way no one would know they were wearing Burberry and there would be little danger of encountering someone who knew that they were.



