It came billed as the prime minister’s “big and bold” offer. What we got was more of a hostage video. Theresa May’s previous major Brexit speeches had taken place in Lancaster House and a Florentine palazzo. Now she was squeezed into the atrium of PWC’s offices in Charing Cross, in front of just a handful of pre-selected journalists. Behind the lectern was a map of the world with the words ‘Seeking common ground in parliament’ written in tiny letters across eastern Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Presumably because there’s a better chance of that there than in the UK.

Shortly after 4pm, May made her way hesitantly in front of the cameras, frequently raising her head towards some bemused accountants on the upper floors – the closest she was going to going to get a friendly face all afternoon. If only the Four Pot Plants had been able to come along to keep her company. But even they had given up on her. Not that she could blame them. She had all but given up on herself. She was the Leader in Name Only.

“It’s a great time to be alive,” she had begun unconvincingly, abject misery written into every line of her face. Brexit is taking its toll on her as well as the country. Only her stubbornness, her refusal to accept the inevitable, was keeping her upright. What she really craved was oblivion. Instead she had to endure humiliation heaped on humiliation. Almost all of it entirely self-inflicted.

What she had to say was too little, too late. A mere repetition of concessions and muddled promises already made. Had she done this six months ago, there might have been a chance of taking the Conservatives – and some Labour MPs – with her. Now she was just screwed. Unloved, unwanted. Too many of her rivals had invested too much time and too much money in their own leadership campaigns to back her now. Her departure was already priced into everyone’s timetable. She could have promised almost anything and MPs would have found any number of excuses to reject her withdrawal agreement bill. Wrong font.

Yet still Lino doggedly plodded on. Devoid of charisma, devoid of ideas. Every word dying on her lips. Not so much a prime minister as a supplicant begging for a stay of execution. “Just let me win one vote,” she begged. That’s all she wanted. One victory. By all means trash her Wab at its third reading, just so long as she was given a free pass at the second one. Then she could die happy.

Here was the deal. She’d failed to persuade parliament to accept the deal she had wanted on three occasions, so now she was going to let them vote on a whole load of things she didn’t want. Her basic offer was that anything that various groups of MPs had asked for were now all in the mix. Even if some of them were pure fantasy or contradicted one another.

It was all a bit embarrassing. Excruciating even. The backstop would still be in place but it definitely would never be implemented because the brilliant alternative arrangements of the Malthouse compromise – a plan not even its author believed in any more – would come to the rescue. And as for the customs union, she was prepared to give it a bit of a go providing no one called it a customs union and that parliament had a right to opt out of it at the next general election. Which could come sooner than later.

As so often happens, Lino displayed the uncanny knack of simultaneously losing the support of MPs from every side of the argument. The woman who had nothing for everyone. She had never found a crowd that she couldn’t alienate. Within days she will have been cast aside by her own cabinet and then she will be entirely adrift. Alone, becalmed, barely afloat. She wasn’t even really clear about where she stood on a second referendum. Other than there could be a vote after a vote after another vote. Not enough to please remainers and far too much for leavers to accept.

“This is deliverable,” May concluded, even though her new deal was clearly dead on arrival. She looked upwards once more for moral support. But these days, she can’t even keep a captive audience. Nearly all the accountants had already wandered off, having long since lost the will to live. There was far more fun to had from winding up companies bankrupted by a no deal Brexit than listening to a prime minister’s last stand.

After a few desultory, non-committal answers to journalists’ questions, Lino sloped back to Downing Street. Yet again she had achieved the seemingly impossible of losing more and more support the longer she spoke. Her deal couldn’t even survive contact with her own voice let alone reality. The net was closing in. Time to call in the removal company.