Political column - November 15

Here is how Mr Davis will have reported to the Prime Minister on the latest round of negotiations.

"It's all going to worms. We're dealing with a bunch of eurocrats who will stay in their jobs no matter what. Whenever we suggest anything, they just say that they've got their orders and it is the UK which must come up with imaginative and flexible solutions. When we say: 'Why don't you?' they just reply 'Because we're the EU and it's you who is leaving. And we want lots of money first anyway.'

"Unless there is a miracle, Prime Minister, and you know I am a natural optimist, we have reached an impasse, the talks are heading towards a breakdown, and there will be no deal."

Mrs May: "Who can we blame for that?"

Mr Davis has been considering that matter.

"Here's my little wheeze."

At this point he leans forward with a conspiratorial smirk.

"It's a win-win for us. We get the Commons to carry the can."

Mrs May looks interested.

"Prime Minister, they've all been banging on about wanting to be able to vote on the deal. Why not give them that vote? It'll look like we're being democratic and reasonable. If they reject it, we'll crash out of the EU without one, and as it looks like that is what's going to happen anyway, what's the difference?

"And if they accept any deal, they will get the blame for that too."

"Excellent, David. There might be a knighthood in this for you when this is all over. By the way, will we have a deal to put to Parliament?"

"Not a hope, Prime Minister."

Incidentally, the belief that the talks are heading for inevitable failure is also the stated view of Labour's shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry.

What we now face is weeks of Westminster talking to itself about the withdrawal bill, which will give lots of opportunities for mischief. If political life isn't complicated enough, it is going to get yet more complicated.

The BBC speaks on its news programmes about "Tory rebels." Twenty five years ago these would be people like the then Ludlow MP Christopher Gill who campaigned against the Maastricht Treaty, which turned the European Economic Community from being essentially a trade body into an aspiring European superstate.

Today you could apply the term "rebel" fairly widely. There are the Tory MPs who have lost confidence in Mrs May's leadership and want her to go, but are well short of achieving critical mass at the moment.

Then there are those who do not want to see a transitional arrangement, and want the UK to make a complete break from the EU on March 29, 2019, at the end of the two-year Article 50 period.

And then there are those who the BBC obviously means, the Remain rearguard, who hope that Brexit can be slowed, halted, or morphed into a Brexit which is in effect a continuation of EU membership.

All this debate will give Labour more opportunity to make clear its own "developing" policy on Brexit.

As it stands it remains a string of platitudes, neatly summed up by Barry Gardiner, the shadow international trade secretary: "What we have said very clearly in the Labour Party is that we believe we want to secure the benefits both of the single market and the customs union... The key thing is we have a Brexit for jobs, a Brexit which is good for our economy, not just a Brexit which is based around an immigration policy."

Meanwhile the row over Boris Johnson's remarks about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe tells us something about the way Westminster and the media works.

Her plight has only become a big story and political row through a Johnson gaffe giving it a UK "handle".

Once it could be put in a UK political context and turned into a weapon to bash Boris, the issue gained legs.

The criticism and venom directed at him has exceeded that which should be directed at those holding her as a state hostage in Iran.

It's a bit like human rights in Bahrain which suddenly came under the spotlight when a Formula One grand prix was being held there.

After the winning car had crossed the finishing line and the Formula One circus departed, so did the high profile interest in Bahraini human rights.