Brownfinger May pulls off ‘le backwards’ in Brussels and heads for Pizza Hut stardom

For all the drama of her stand-up row with Jean-Claude Juncker, the top line on Theresa May’s save-the-day mission to Brussels is that it resulted in the EU actually removing the only helpful paragraph of the draft conclusions. Never mind “the backstop”; this is what is known as “the backwards” – or “le backwards”, on the continent. Perhaps they should have kept Brownfinger off the plane to Brussels, given that everything she touches turns to this.

Things have now gone so badly that I would expect May to be offered a Pizza Hut advert the minute she lands back in the UK. Her fictional analogue is the League of Gentlemen vet, Mr Chinnery, whose ministrations would routinely end in the dog exploding, the tortoise exploding or the parrot exploding. Or an entire pond of koi carp being electrocuted. For the love of God, Veterinary May: please stop trying to make things better.

If you are too sensitive for the comedy of embarrassment, please look away now, for it is reported that at one point in her discussions with the EU27, May actually said “Brexit means Brexit”. I mean … I just can’t. “Brexit means Brexit” is the sort of fantastically infantile phrase you can get away with in our fantastically infantile country, but which obviously – obviously! – should never be spoken in civilised society. This is like a parent turning up at a grownups’ party and imagining people want to hear about their child’s potty training. They don’t, OK – any more than grownups want to hear “Brexit means Brexit”. It’s babyish, it’s distasteful and it’s basically a disgusting mess.

Other bright spots? Many of you will be feeling that you simply haven’t heard enough on Brexit from that turbo-compromised messenger Tony Blair. For you, there are glad tidings, as Mr Blair broke a 14-minute silence to declare: “Brexit is manmade. It can be unmade by man. We simply must discover the will to change.” Powerful words, there, from the Deepak Chopra of destabilising the entire Middle East. I guess you can’t be a meaningful life coach until you’ve got a couple of hundred thousand deaths under your belt. “Things do not need to be like this,” continued the only Zen master to offer multimillion-pound advice to the Saudi government. “We are not hypnotised to do this. We can assume consciousness. We have free will.”

Why does our former prime minister now speak like the sort of wellness guru who might have their coffee-table book on psychic energy promoted via Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop website? The answer remains tantalisingly out of reach – perhaps just beyond the bulletproof curtain to the astral dimension. But it is fair to say that Tony doesn’t look like he’s been playing with a full set of fanny crystals since about 2001.

As the week draws to a close, the chain of events that led up to the no-confidence vote against May on Wednesday is rather difficult to categorise. If pushed, I would say it was like Game of Thrones, only re-enacted by the sort of Westminster inadequates who masturbate to Game of Thrones. The fallout is not fallout so much as a political prolapse. Those badge-kissers the ERG are not even dormant, while the parliamentary maths remains exactly as intractable as it was before.

All that has emerged more clearly is the list of Tories apparently preparing tilts for the leadership now May has said she won’t be fighting the 2022 election. There are the expected candidates, such as Sajid Javid, while aspirant perspirant Dominic Raab is still desperately trying to make himself happen.

That said, Dominic is like Beyoncé compared with David Lidington. The implication of David Lidington’s name being included in the lists of runners and riders is that the already put-upon British people are now expected to find out who David Lidington is. Don’t look at me. All I can tell you is that David Lidington’s newspaper epithet is “the de facto deputy prime minister”, which always reads like a calculated insult, marred only by the fact that you do typically need to know who is being insulted for it to work. For all the cut-through he has, David Lidington might as well be in witness protection.

The most eye-catching suggestion is a joint Boris Johnson-Amber Rudd ticket. At this stage in its journey beyond self-esteem, it feels about right that the UK could be led by a woman and the very man she warned was a metaphorical date rapist. “Boris?” Rudd inquired on live TV during the referendum campaign. “Well, he’s the life and soul of the party, but he’s not the man you want driving you home at the end of the evening.” Just to be super-clear: this is a date-rape joke with a drink-drive cover story, as Amber Rudd knew perfectly well when she said it. It’s not like it was said by Andrea Jenkyns, whose attempts to pin the tail on coherence tend toward the excruciating. (We hear much too much about low-information voters, and not nearly enough about low-information politicians.)

Yet speaking of the Andreas, it’s great to learn that Andrea Leadsom was making calls to muster support for a bid this week. Andrea’s last leadership campaign simply burned too brightly, extinguishing itself before it made landfall. You have to feel there is so much more to come from Brexit’s Oxo mum.

As for what might happen in the next episode of this landmark show we all have to live in, there is bad news for people who want a second referendum or the Norway option. To wit: dog-exploding former May chief of staff Nick Timothy said after this week’s ERG failure that the only outcomes left are a second referendum or the Norway option. So … buy shares in no deal today. I’m kidding, of course: take all your pretend money out of the stock market and buy water purification tablets, a backpack, a tarpaulin and a gun. Happy holidays.

• Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist