Originally it told MPs to respect “the will of the people”. Fearing that this has fallen on deaf ears, however, the Government is now trying a new tack. It’s telling MPs to respect “the will of the manifestoes”.

A peculiar line, but that’s what the Government is going with. Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the Commons, coined the phrase today, during a statement from the dispatch box. The only acceptable form of Brexit, she warned MPs, would be one that was “in line with the will of the manifestoes that we all stood on” at the 2017 general election. In other words: if a particular type of Brexit (say, “Common Market 2.0”) didn’t feature in his or her party’s manifesto, an MP shouldn’t vote for it.

Her argument makes sense. At least, until you start to think about it.

Take the Tory manifesto. Mrs Leadsom seems to think that all Tory MPs are bound by it. Well, perhaps not quite all. One Tory MP, apparently, is exempt from this rule. Theresa May.

She, after all, ditched the manifesto’s most attention-grabbing new policy (the so-called “dementia tax”) just four days after it was published. Then, immediately after the election, she ditched many of its other pledges – for example, giving MPs a free vote on fox hunting; axing free school lunches for children aged five to seven; dropping the triple lock on pensions; and ending the ban on new grammar schools.