shiny beads and shallow flattery

I'm guessing that Mr Barnier is prepared to throw a few shiny beads into the Brexit negotiation in order to get the legal part signed. Once that is done, there's no going back, as well as the requirement for that €39 billion payment from UK to EU.

The 'will of the people' should be all for getting on with it, if the plans for the next steps were sensible and covered the main bases.

The current May Plan does neither.

There's holes, wishful thinking, reality distortions and fudges all over it. Some of her own party (including the man once responsible David Davis) are saying it is not fit for purpose.

Alongside Barnier's civil service mechanics we still hear that, by definition, the EU won't concede on many things useful to the UK. Angela Merkel has followed guidance from her own German industries that Britain must be punished. Macron in France follows a similar hard line.

Even the UK press readership is struggling, according to this week's yougov poll.

And now, the government say that talk of a peoples' vote weakens the current situation because EU would then deliberately negotiate in a way to force a 'Stay' vote.

The PM's single-mindedness creates a massive blind spot. So far I haven't linked May's name with that of Farage, Johnson, Cameron, Gove, Rees-Mogg, Davis and the others on the catastrophic bus. But now??

May's Chequers Deal wheels have come off before the bus quite got to the cliff edge. But beware: Barnier's beads will be just enough to ensure we can drive it over.