Mr Davis is a happy chappie, so I’ve always found, and he was as pleased as punch (Old Jamaica 49p/330ml) when he wandered in on Tuesday to chew the fat (goose, £3.50/295g) over our remarkable new transition deal with the EU.

“Pat,” he bellowed as he bundled into the store, “we’ve done it. We’ve crushed the perfidious Frenchee and the sly Hun and the tricky Eyetie and we’ve guaranteed a deal for noble Albion that offers a shining future with not one of our red lines transgressed, no, not one”.

union jack british

Luckily I keep a small supply of herbal tea on hand for such emergencies, and laced with a smattering of temazepam this seemed to do the trick. It turned out that what Mr Davis actually meant was that he had taken M Barnier’s negotiating list and scribbled his name at the bottom of it. But then any deal is better than no deal at all I suppose, as Mr Davis and Mrs May have maintained all along.

There’s always going to be a bit of give and take in these things, with the UK giving away all its rights and the EU taking all of Mrs Sturgeon’s cod, which seemed to make her quite upset even though she wasn’t keen on leaving the EU at all. There’s no pleasing some people!

Luckily she has a firm friend in Mr Rees-Mogg, who is planning his own protest on a boat along the Thames. Jacob is going to bring the Mother of Parliaments to its very knees by chucking herring into the river. I’m not absolutely sure how that works in practice but he’s a man of the people so I’m sure he’s got it all figured out. In any case, someone’s got to supply those fish. And they don’t come cheap these days. Not with Brexit and everything.