British prime ministers are prone to spend their last days governing from a bunker. Convinced of their own immortality they dispense with forthright advisers in favour of devoted aides. The passage of time narrows their sight of the world beyond the front door of 10 Downing Street.

Theresa May has started out where her predecessors ended up. Scarcely six months in the job, Mrs May is roundly mistrustful of her senior civil servants. Officials are shut out of decision-making. Unvarnished advice invites histrionics from her political sidekicks. It is not an intelligent way to run a government — never mind one charged with managing the biggest upheaval in the nation’s political and economic life since the end of the second world war.

Mrs May has now set out her plans for a “hard” Brexit — a clean break with the EU that will take Britain out of the single market and the customs union. There can be no half-in, half-out, she said, if Britain wanted to curb EU migration and renounce the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.