“One thing that working closely with her does is cure you completely of any lingering shred of ambition to want to do that task.”
He and other pro-Soft Brexit or Remain Ministers have long been pushing for some variant of this move.
Several Ministers helped to see off the Government’s best hope of avoiding a full-on crisis in the Party – and perhaps of saving Brexit too.
There is a joint legally binding instrument on the Withdrawal Agreement. But what does the Attorney-General think?
The Employment Minister embodies two reasons why the Government is still afloat – its jobs creation record and under-reported Ministerial loyalty.
“There was no mention whatsoever of any infrastructure, any hard border” in Dublin’s preparations for a WTO Brexit.
But their deputies look stricken, while the defectors are rejuvenated.
He teases Thornberry that perhaps when she voted for Article 50 to be triggered she was “present but not involved”.
But neither she nor Lidington sounded as if they expect Brexit to end in disaster.