Hell hath no fury like a Brexiteer scorned — but Davis could learn a thing or two from Milton’s Satan

Taking back control of our laws and borders means that a sovereign UK Parliament must be able to determine our future as a self-governing, trading nation. Our destiny must not be in the EU’s hands,” the former Brexit Secretary David Davis declared in response to news that Brussels will insist that the European Court of Justice should arbitrate on post-Brexit customs arrangements.

“This makes a mockery of the referendum result. Cabinet ministers need to recognise this and London needs to face down Brussels,” he added.

Where, I wondered, had I heard that tone of voice before? And at once it came to me: Satan. Paradise Lost Book One. Specifically, Satan’s celebrated line that it is “better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven”.

As you’ll remember, at this point old pointy-tail had launched a spirited but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to renegotiate his rebate with the Almighty, and was now smouldering with his badly bruised associates in the general vicinity of a lake of freezing fire.

How, he was wondering indignantly, could anyone have known beforehand what a weak bargaining position the rebel angels were in: “Till then [ie: till God utterly kicked our arses] who knew/The force of those dire Arms?” Licking his wounds, he was keen to argue that they were all in this together: “Mutual league/United thoughts and counsels, equal hope/And hazard in the Glorious Enterprise.”

And he was determined to double down — this was a setback, not a defeat, and God could make their eternal lives unpleasant but he could never break their spirits: “To bow and sue for grace/With suppliant knee […] were low indeed.” Contemplating his unappealing new digs, he declared: “Here at least/We shall be free.”

These words could have been uttered by many Brexiteers. This was supposed to be easy; it’s the Will of the People, and even if we end up in the Bad Place, we’ve won a victory in principle if we refuse to bend the knee. This is now the Brexiteer’s default position. Like Satan with his rebel angels, they started out promising to reign in Heaven and are now trying to make reigning in Hell sound like the ideal consolation prize.

It points to how this is much more about psychology than statecraft. The abstract goods of “freedom” and “control” are, at every point, put above the concrete goods of people having jobs, food on supermarket shelves, peace in Ireland, people not dying for lack of medicine etc. And instead of admitting they goofed, they’re — backfire effect! — doubling down.

I know, I know. The analogy is not exact. Milton’s Satan is more charismatic and more articulate than David Davis. And the EU is not like Heaven. Milton’s Heaven was a tyranny and the EU really isn’t — the rebel angels didn’t get a vote, let alone all the carve-outs and exemptions that Britain has negotiated with Brussels over the years.

As I’m not the first to point out, you could sort of see Satan’s point. David Davis’s, not so much.

Michelle Keegan’s smear campaign is a bold new step

Actor Michelle Keegan has taken a bold step live-streaming her cervical smear test on Instagram. She did so to encourage others to have the procedure, noting one in four women fails to turn up to her appointment and that screening rates are at a 20-year low. “My advice to you,” she wrote, was “STOP making excuses, book, and go for your bl**dy smear! A smear tests last five minutes, the impact of cervical cancer lasts a lifetime!”

Those of us not of the Instagram generation may have found a cocktail onion go down the wrong way when we considered a close-up of her bare knees pointed skywards, over which in loopy writing was inscribed: “Here we go ...”

Perhaps she’ll start a trend. I’m not sure how I’d feel, though, about seeing Ant and Dec rummaging in their pants to promote testicular cancer awareness, or Jeremy Clarkson doing his bit for prostate examinations.

Fish and chips are off the menu in Syria

East Londoner Reema Iqbal, who travelled to Syria with her jihadi husband and sister to join Islamic State’s murderous “caliphate”, complains to an interviewer that it’s actually quite horrid in the North Syrian detention camp where she now lives, and that she misses the comforts of home.

So what does she miss most?

“Fish and chips, any day. First choice — fish and chips.

“Food and friends, the whole lot. Your whole life. It’s sad that it goes, just like that. That your whole life can change just like that.”

Well. The “infidels” her team boasted of murdering aren’t eating fish and chips either.