On Sunday, Gove said (HERE) he would not back any delay to the UK leaving the customs union beyond the transition period to allow new border technology to be developed. “In delay there lies no plenty,” he said. “The critical thing is to meet that deadline. My experience in government reinforces my belief that we need to make sure we deliver things at pace".
Err, what "pace" is that? After two years of thinking about the customs union and reaching no conclusion, the "pace" he is talking about must be in relation to the movement of glaciers.
The cabinet’s Brexit subcommittee will meet again tomorrow but is not expected to emerge with a compromise. A government source suggested the two working groups of cabinet ministers, set up last week to thrash out arguments for both proposals, needed to be "given time" to work through the two options. How much more time do they need? At this rate Britain will begin to look like Miss Havisham's bedroom in Great Expectations before we get a solution to the Irish border problem, covered in dust and cobwebs.
One can easily imagine the eleven members of the Brexit war cabinet sitting around little tables of the sort you find pushed together in play school. A mess of crayons and paintbrushes litter the tables. Ministers are deep in concentration and wearing aprons, hands thick with paint. In front of each one is their very own attempt at a picture of the customs border, set out in glorious, vivid colours with matchstick figures and lorries sitting on irregular black, almost round wheels. Mrs May wanders around the group, murmuring the occasional word of encouragement or asking a question about some detail or other which is not perhaps entirely clear.
"Very nice, Greg. What's that?"
She points to something half obscured by the trees and hedgerows that Greg has drawn along side the strip of grey tarmac.
"It's an invisible Irish border Mrs May", says little Greg Clark, while David Davis scowls at him.
"Excellent, excellent", says Theresa, moving swiftly on.
Greg grins and sticks his tongue out at Michael Gove, who is adding a sentry and watchtower to the massive steel gates he has already drawn. Gove stares back through his thick rimmed specs, silently draws a finger slowly across his throat and watches Clark gulp as the grin quickly disappears.
And so the afternoon wears on at the No 10 kindergarten until the bell rings to tell them it's nearly half past May - they still haven't quite got an agreement - and time for a nap.
