Political column July 26

Miracles never cease.

She's made it to the Parliamentary summer break despite leading - a term to be used loosely in this case - an administration in which the term "Tory rebel" gets you immediately scratching your head.

Are the rebels those who cling to long-held Tory pro-EU values? Or are they those who are calling for a clean break with the EU, rather than the fudgealot departure being championed by Mrs May?

Whatever, the Prime Minister has shown staying power in circumstances in which another Tory leader would have been pitched out on their ear long ago.

She's been written off more times than, well, something that's been written off a lot.Tony Blair attracted the nickname Teflon Tony because nothing would stick. Theresa May is sticking to Number 10 like a limpet.

To her credit, there is no sign that this is through overweening personal ambition. No politician in their right mind would want to go through what she has been going through. Through a sense of duty, this vicar's daughter really does seem to be taking one for the team.

Her summer break rallying call is: "I'm in charge!" At least she's got a sense of humour.

Brexit means botch it, she has famously repeated (my hearing is not so good these days). The knives aimed at her back, and her front, are glinting in the Westminster sunshine.

Paradoxically, being in deep do-dos is helping her.

Here is the current job description for anybody wanting to be Prime Minister: settle up to your neck in ordure, and then have your own MPs drop more of the stuff liberally on your head.

There are no bright sunlit political uplands in sight. The agonising political convulsions of Brexit will not last weeks or months, but years, and there is nothing anybody can do about it.

This is the difference between Mrs May's position and that faced by John Major all those years ago when his life was made a misery by Tory Euro rebels whose parentage he questioned. Major beat them off and, although they continued to drive him mad, his victory was enduring.

Today the Prime Minister faces hand to hand combat, with no rest, or let up. And that is just in the UK, without factoring Michel "the UK must be taught a lesson" Barnier and the EU's punishment agenda.

So what has gone right? How is she surviving? Maybe there has been an appreciation in the Conservative Party that given the difficult cards that she has been handed, nobody could reasonably play them better, apart from that little matter of shooting herself in the foot by calling a general election while the balance of her mind was disturbed by opinion polls.

Then there is the desire to cling tight to nurse, for the fear of ending up with something worse.

The thought of Boris at Number 10 is enough to make many Tory backbenchers go pale. Ditto Jacob Rees- Mogg. Stranger things have happened though.

The Brexit implosion will arrive in the autumn and somebody is going to have to carry the can. So for the moment it is a good idea for ambitious politicians to steer clear of cans.

When Parliament holds its "meaningful vote" on the deal, if there is one of course, Labour will vote against it whatever it is. If Tory Remainers join them and vote it down, there is going to be a shambles. Vote of confidence? General election? New referendum? The latter at least can be ruled out, as even those calling for one don't agree on what the question should be.

And when that shambles arrives, the public will become even more fed up and sickened by the whole pantomime than they are already.

One of Aesop's fables is about the scorpion and the frog. The scorpion asks the frog to carry him on his back across a stream. "How do I know you won't sting me?" says the frog. "Because if I do, I will die too," says the scorpion.

Half way across the scorpion stings the frog. "Why did you sting me?" gasps the dying frog. "Because it's in my nature," says the drowning scorpion.

The public was asked a simple question, gave their answer, and left it to the politicians to sort out.

They are making an almighty mess of it. It's in their nature.