Michel Barnier looked troubled. He’d always worked on the assumption it was the EU that took negotiations down to the wire, but now it was the UK that was taking the piss. We weren’t into injury time so much as injury time to injury time. A liberty even Alex Ferguson wouldn’t have demanded of a referee.

At a press conference to mark the end of a general affairs meeting at which he had been keeping foreign ministers up to speed, the EU’s chief negotiator tried to make sense of the situation by talking himself through the current state of play.

Price of Brexit delay could be referendum or election, says Barnier Read more

A withdrawal agreement had been agreed between the EU and the UK. The only one possible given Theresa May’s red lines. That much he knew for certain. After that it all got a bit confusing as the UK parliament kept rejecting it. Not that it was too much peau off his nez. The EU was more or less ready for no deal if that was the way the UK wanted to play it, but if the prime minister was going to ask for an extension, she first needed to get a bend on and then tell everyone why she wanted one. Asking for an extension merely because you need a little more time to work out why you want an extension was not going to cut it.

What Barnier really wanted to hear was some kind of plan. A sense of purpose. His reality checker then cut in, as he remembered it was the Leader in Name Only he was dealing with. Someone whose only discernible talent was her indecision. He quickly lowered his sights. Maybe a sense of direction was asking too much. He’d settle for a few hints expressed through interpretive dance. Not waving but drowning. Let’s keep things simple, he said. After all, this was the UK. A country that appeared to have nominated itself as this year’s comedy nul-points entry for the Eurovision song contest.

Here was the deal reduced to its basics: the UK could ask for a short extension or a long extension. But it couldn’t have both at the same time. The Schrödinger options of the short extension that could simultaneously be long or the long extension that could also be short were both non-starters. Quantum contradictions may be the current foundation of UK politics, but the EU preferred to stick to the Newtonian model. Compared with his British counterparts, Barnier was a model of clarity. An adult politician delivering an adult message. There would be no freedom of movement of the UK clusterfuckery to Brussels, merci beaucoup.

Price of Brexit delay could be referendum or election, says Barnier Read more

Back in the UK, Lino was making some progress. She had finally noticed that the government was in crisis. Better late than never. But not, apparently, at such a late stage of crisis that she actually needed to come to a decision. Because after a long cabinet meeting at which precisely nothing had been agreed – things have now reached peak inertia, with ministers no longer either able to remember exactly what it was they had promised to resign over or even if they had any principles in the first place – the only clarity was that there was no clarity. How do you ask for an extension that you promised everyone you would never ask for?

Lino knew she was due to write a letter to Donald Tusk but, after several hours sitting at her desk, she had got no further than Cher David. Aidez-moi s’il vous plait. Je suis completely out of mon depth and have no idea what I wanter. Other than to crawl under a rock and hide for the next few jours. Je am un hostage de la Conservative party. Best wishes, Theresa. PS Can you getter moi a EU passport?

With the UK effectively in a state of limbo – why panic when there were still 10 days in which to do nothing? – the only vague signs of leadership were to be found on Good Morning Britain, where Piers Morgan sharp-elbowed his way into Susanna Reid’s interview with Tony Blair. The country’s future momentarily in the hands of the two most disliked men in the UK. Blair looked gaunt and, even when he was saying something reasonable, couldn’t help but appear shifty. Morgan, meanwhile, has turned himself into a one-man Alan Partridge tribute act, a narcissist of modest intelligence who has no idea that he is actually the joke. Much like the current government. Onwards and sideways.