The finest champagnes do not age

The other night, I dreamt about Brexit. Awakening to the oppression of an urgent task, it took me a few seconds to realise that my only task was to go back to sleep. I described all this to an MP friend, who said that he had done the same several times, as had a number of his colleagues. But there is a difference between that and a normal bad dream, instantly dispelled by wakefulness. It merely intensifies Brexit nightmares. How long, O Lord.

Sometimes, much of the public comes to a conclusion without plunging into the detail. A few weeks ago, lots of people who had never taken any notice of prorogations or the royal prerogative decided that Boris had been underhand. Now, there is a similar mood about Brexit — but this time, it is on Boris’s side. As for the procrastinators, ‘underhand’ does not begin to express the anger which they are arousing.

That brings us to the Prime Minister, more a phenomenon than a politician. A few months ago, I wrote some disobliging pieces about Boris. I may have been utterly wrong. Government can make extraordinary demands, which apparently well-qualified men cannot satisfy. Think of Peel, Chamberlain and Eden; who would have thought that Attlee would be a far more formidable PM than Eden? Think, indeed, of Gladstone and Cameron, who both had every attribute of statesmanship except success (not that we should necessarily use the past tense about David Cameron, who has only just turned 53). Compare those characters with the outsiders: Churchill, Thatcher and now Boris.

When Brexit is delivered, there will be a lot of wounds to bind up, plus the requirement for oxygen to replace the vast amounts drained to feed the recent fires.