The question a second referendum must ask

Mostly I stay confident the Prime Minister’s team are playing a weak hand badly, but my confidence does occasionally falter. Then Downing Street does something really stupid (like expelling 21 of its own parliamentary party) and I’m reassured that these people aren’t clever at all.

This happened last weekend when I opened my Sunday Times to find there a personal attack on Sir Oliver Letwin by ‘senior sources’. These sources had scoffed to journalists that when, before the Commons vote on his amendment, Letwin was at Downing Street to discuss it, he was taking ‘conspiratorial phone calls’ on his mobile phone, giving him ‘instructions’ from David Pannick. Lord Pannick is the eminent QC whom Sir Oliver has sensibly consulted for legal advice. ‘One witness’ (claimed these sources) said Letwin walked through No. 10 ‘giggling like an eight-year-old and had to keep calling Pannick on his mobile to find out what he was allowed to do’.