Yesterday an amendment was made to a routine finance bill passed in the House of Commons – the intention of which was to make it harder for the government to prepare for a No-Deal brexit.  The amendment was passed thanks to the help of a number of government MPs who voted against the government – one of whom – the Right Honourable Oliver Letwin said “We will not allow a no-deal exit to occur at the end of March.”

Principled and sensible stuff one would think…  However in June of 2018, the very same Right Honourable Oliver Letwin voted down 3 amendments to the EU Withdrawal bill from the House of Lords; amendments which would have  required MPs’ explicit approval of the exit date (rather than the arbitrary March 29th date)- presumably to guard against having to leave without a deal in place.

Did Mr Letwin et al not think about this when they voted back in June – have they only now realised the plain idiocy of saying “I will jump out of the aeroplane in 1 hour – whether the parachute is ready or not”!  I am only sorry that they are not jumping into the breach alone…