At Chequers, the Prime Minister must stick to her "no deal is better than a bad deal" mantra, or risk splitting the Conservative Party like Sir Robert Peel

The Prime Minister said, as soon as she took office, that “Brexit means Brexit” and in the last election, in her personal contract with the British people, she declared that we would leave the single market and the customs union. At Chequers this week the nation will see if her promises are kept or if the policy advocated by a former member of the SDP wins favour.

The Prime Minister’s greatest virtue is her dutifulness, without a Parliamentary majority and with a cabinet that has forgotten Lord Melbourne’s definition of collective responsibility “it is not much matter which we say, but mind, we must all say the same”, nonetheless she carries on.

Perhaps the vicar‘s daughter is inspired by the hymn “Jesus good above all other, gentle child of gentle mother in a stable born our brother, give us grace to persevere”. It is certainly a grace she has been given in abundance and it is also her great strength.

As the cabinet prepares to assemble in the Buckinghamshire countryside it may choose to reflect on what we have already done and it should consider what unity and determination can deliver.