Theresa May’s ‘war cabinet’ was more reminiscent of a Carry On film than any sort of political breakthrough

One day, if they’ve got nothing better to do, historians will search this weekend’s reports from Thursday’s astoundingly crucial Brexit “war cabinet” at Chequers for one of those tiny details that can be the shortcut to illuminating grandiose events.

I think we can save them some time. Today’s newspapers groan with verbose, pinpoint analyses of what was said by whom, and who sat where and why, when the titans of government met in rural Bucks. That’s fair enough. Words have some meaning, if not necessarily the one intended, and Theresa May’s people clearly reckoned that the geography was important, or they wouldn’t have carefully staged a suitably portentous aerial photo of Theresa May flanked by Michael Gove, David Davis and Boris Johnson, the Snap, Crackle and Pop of Hard Brexit, with Mr Softy Philip Hammond relegated to the middle distance.

Yet despite the delectably subtle optics, the only detail that shines blindingly from a gathering that curiously kept moving locations is that it was, for a while, staged in the Hawtrey Room.

Was that accidental, or shock evidence that the Prime Minister has developed an acute sense of ironic self-awareness? The hunch is for the latter. She is 61 years old, and no natural-born Brit over 50 could possibly notice that detail without thinking of Charles Hawtrey and the Carry On films. Given the care that went into the planning, she cannot have been unaware of that.

I hope I don’t flatter the PM by imagining her impishly selecting the Hawtrey Room (in fact named after the 16th century nob who built the house) to remind us of a divergence, to borrow the Brexit buzzword du jour, from an overquoted Marxian dictum.

If the history of future-defining “war cabinet” meetings has repeated itself, the first time in May 1940, when Churchill cajoled his colleagues to carry on fighting, was hardly a tragedy. Still, one of two ain’t bad, Karly boy. The second time, at Chequers on Thursday, was certainly a farce.

Despite the presence of mandarins and all the incessant, inexplicable shifting from room to room, it wasn’t a vulgar Whitehall farce in the ‘No Brex Please, We’re British!’ tradition. No one scandalised the vicar’s daughter by dropping their trousers.

This was a loose remake of Carry On… Don’t Lose Your Head, with the action transposed from revolutionary France to modern Buckinghamshire as a pampered, complacent ruling class fought the latest battle in its futile war to drown out the ever less distant clicking of electoral tumbrils.

May won’t lose her head for a while yet, which was of course her only purpose in hosting this pow wow. She carefully designed a quartet of unifying bullet-point Brexit policies, or aspirations, to be just Brexity enough not to give Boris Johnson his excuse to stage the Heseltonian flounce out, but not quite Brexity enough to inflame Hammond and Amber Rudd.

As with the immediate aftermath of the December pre-deal deal with the EU, Downing Street sells this as a meaningful strengthening of her position, and some punters are buying. This is our version of “At last Trump is becoming presidential” whenever the tangerine baboon sticks to the autocue for more than 43 seconds. Lovely while it lasts, but...

If those attending the “war cabinet” imagined anything they agreed had an iota of relevance beyond the fantasy bubble, within hours (as Gove apparently anticipated, but Johnson did not) it was plain that Brussels won’t be bleedin’ havin’ any of it, and that therefore none of it will happen.

The only clear area of divergence the British Government has established so far is the one from reality. This morning, Liam Fox suggested to Andrew Marr that the EU’s trade imbalance with the UK will force it to comply with British demands. “We’ve got to stop seeing Europe as the centre of this debate,” he said, as if everyone sane knows the bullseye is located in the Solomon Islands.

Fox can’t have sobered up yet from the intoxicating air of mass delusion pumped into the Hawtrey Room on Thursday. It’s like watching someone trying to bluff 27 other poker players after showing them he’s holding deuce, seven off suit. Heroic in its bravado, but not very likely to work.

If May muttered “Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me” to the Arthur Askey husband over breakfast today, who could blame her? While the enemies across the Channel take a few seconds from important matters to shrug or smile or snort, or however they react whenever Number 10 takes a position everyone knows it will swiftly abandon, the enemy within is mustering.

The Labour leadership edges towards a pro-customs union stance to accelerate the Tory schism, while MPs from both sides plot to defeat the Government whenever May decides she can postpone the amendment vote on that issue no longer.

And through it all, because as someone once said there is no alternative, the PM carries on with the stridency of Hattie Jacques rebuking Charles Hawtrey for his sympathetic pregnancy, but none of her authority.

Bless her for staging the Chequers playlet with such theatrical gusto, and doubly bless anyone in attendance who before, during or after it convinced themselves it was about anything more than buying her time.

She emerged from it to offer the vague assurance that our best days are ahead, and will doubtless reiterate that mantra in her big set piece on Friday. Carry on, Comical Ali!