I note that many commentators are now beginning to suggest Theresa May's extraordinary statement yesterday was aimed more at leave voters and her own party than the EU. An attempt to shore up her position before the party conference begins next week on 30th September. I think there is some truth in this. She faced a difficult conference anyway and Thursday's humiliation in Salzburg probably threatened her premiership or so she might have calculated.
The Guardian saw yesterday's Cruella Deville performance as panic in the guise of statecraft (HERE) and that's how it looked. May seemed to take it all personally and allowed the impression to be gained that she had been ambushed. Donald Tusk this morning is saying she has known for weeks that the EU thought the Chequers plan was unworkable. I believe him. She has a habit of insisting that black is white even when everybody can see otherwise - remember the 'nothing has changed' speech?
I am afraid we have a PM who does not listen and mistakes stubbornness for leadership. She is a diminished figure.
In the statement she said, "Throughout this process, I have treated the EU with nothing but respect. The UK expects the same. A good relationship at the end of this process depends on it".
I imagine this might have caused a bit of laughter in the Berlaymont building. She has hectored and threatened them, blamed them, drawn a maze of red lines and then accused them of being inflexible and gone behind the back of their appointed negotiators. This is not treating the EU with respect.
Are we perhaps witnessing the final comeuppance of British exceptionalism? Britain hasn't picked a significant fight that it lost since 1776. In between it has bullied an awful lot of countries from China in the opium wars, India through the Raj and just about everywhere else. I suppose Suez was the biggest exception but there have been very few, let's be honest. In the main we get our own way by siding with the most powerful nation on earth, the USA. But now we are up against the EU and while there are calls for compromise on both sides, it is quite obvious where the balance of power lies.
They are seven times our size and control the largest and richest trading bloc in the world, the one that we are desperate to get access to. They hold the ticking countdown timer and the right to grant a transition period or an extension to the negotiating period. Who do we think will be doing the compromising?
