Theresa may

With the government on the brink of a full blown crisis, there was speculation that Theresa May would use today's Brexit statement to the House to turn her ire on Brussels. In the end it wasn't to be and the Prime Minister adopted a conciliatory tone – praising both sides – as she did her best to insist that it was business as normal. After Dominic Raab's fruitless trip to Brussels marked an impasse in the Brexit negotiations, the Prime Minister insisted that she did not believe the UK and the EU were actually so 'far apart' on the remaining issues.

If last week was 'hell week' for Theresa May, the next few days could be classed as the Prime Minister's trip to the ninth circle. With problems over the Irish border backstop unsolved, No 10 are fighting fire on multiple fronts ahead of a crucial EU Council meeting on Wednesday. The papers are filled with Cabinet resignation threats, rumoured leadership bids and a warning from the DUP that 'no deal' is now the most likely outcome. The Sunday Times puts the number of no confidence letters with 1922 chair Graham Brady at 44 – if four more go in a confidence vote will follow. Should that come to be and May lose, David Davis is now being talked up (once again) as a caretaker PM over Boris Johnson.

Sunday night was when the deal on the Irish backstop was meant to be done. But, as I say in The Sun this morning, this now seems unlikely to happen. The UK  and the EU are just too far apart on too many issues. There are two big issues at play. One, whether there should be a UK-wide backstop or one for Great Britain and another for Northern Ireland. I am told that at Thursday’s meeting of the inner Cabinet, ministers were told that the EU has not yet agreed to a UK-wide customs backstop. The second question is whether the backstop should be time limited. One member of the inner Cabinet who attended its discussion on Thursday night tells me that the meeting ‘didn’t really settle anything’. I am told that ‘The PM chaired as opposed to opined’.

From the offset, this week was described as one that would be hellish for Theresa May. However, the DUP have given fresh meaning to 'hell week' after embarking on a PR offensive to make their displeasure at the government's Irish backstop proposals known. Today the Prime Minister meets with a select number of Cabinet ministers (those seen as supportive) to update them on the Brexit talks – but the people she desperately needs to win over are Arlene Foster and Nigel Dodds. Foster and her colleagues have seen red after details have emerged of May's backstop proposals. These proposals would see different regulatory systems for goods in Britain and Northern Ireland. With such a system, it's hard to see how Northern Ireland could be part of new global trade deals the UK signs.

It was the line in her conference speech that demonstrated Theresa May’s desire to stay on as Prime Minister after Brexit. But it was also the line that will cause her the most trouble. I say in The Sun this morning that May’s declaration that austerity is over will cause problems even if the Tories couldn’t have fought another election on austerity. First of all, they have already pledged to spend an extra £20 billion on the NHS. At the time, many senior Tories regarded this as the party making a choice to spend ‘the proceeds of growth’ on the health service. But by now announcing the end of austerity, May has suggested that the taps will be turned on elsewhere too.

A weekend news report says Environment Secretary Michael Gove’s childhood has been scrutinised by colleagues ‘for clues to understanding this most paradoxical of politicians — the popular, ultra-courteous free-thinker who, by knifing Boris Johnson in the 2016 Tory leadership election, became a byword for treachery’. Gove was adopted as a baby and has never sought to meet his birth parents. He speaks fondly of the Aberdeen couple who adopted him. While the article concerned was generally favourable to Gove, the line about colleagues scrutinising his childhood jarred. It seemed to suggest childhood adoption might have inclined him to later-in-life treachery, as if that was the sad result of giving a child a home. Back-stabbing is hardly unknown in frontline politics.

How does Theresa May plan to reinvigorate her party and send it out, united and happy, after this week's conference? If the extracts of her speech that have been trailed tonight are anything to go by, it's not clear that the Prime Minister knows how to answer that question, either. It's either the case that May is holding back a series of announcements for the speech itself or for individual newspapers, or that she is planning to make motherhood and apple pie look controversial in comparison to the epithets she is going to deliver. The Prime Minister will tell the country that 'our best days lie ahead of us and that our future is full of promise'.