You may be familiar with BRINO, Brexit in Name Only. Plunged into deep gloom as I listened to Theresa May hold forth in the Commons on “the backstop to the backstop” (I didn’t understand what the first backstop was…), I suddenly thought of another acronym: PRINO. Prime Minister in Name Only.

“How can she talk for so long without saying anything?” demands a mystified friend. Truly, this is one of PRINO’s skills, some might say her only skill. To chunter verbiage by the mile like some demonically possessed printer which keeps expelling pages while you scrabble in vain for the Off button.

Hang on, you think, wasn’t it PRINO who agreed to the backstop in the first place, the same backstop she’s now pretending to object to?

“LET ME BE CLEAR.” Oh, please no. Not “let me be clear” again. That’s the phrase she drops in periodically, a piece of meaningless punctuation before the printer resumes its relentless spewing.

You can see it in the eyes of all her colleagues, even the ones who are supposedly loyal. How long before they can cart her off to the vet to put everyone out of her misery?