This was @DavidDavisMP on @MarrShow 3 September telling the public a £50bn Brexit divorce bill is "rubbish, nonsense and completely wrong!" pic.twitter.com/wNzY6XeVCf

— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) November 29, 2017

A few weeks ago Dexeu forced a correction from FT after we wrote that "Steve Baker and Robin Walker, two Dexeu ministers, admitted last week that they had not read the assessments." https://t.co/QKzA2D5mnX Now they say the assessments never existed. Weird or what?

— Jim Pickard ? (@PickardJE) November 28, 2017

Minister Walker says it is clear documents “don’t exist in the way they were asked for”… but a month ago, SoS Davis when asked at Committee about “impact assessments” said there were 57 in such “excruciating detail” that PM had not read “every single one” pic.twitter.com/wFdjlKOFrR

— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) November 28, 2017

Some arguing that a vote on contempt would be equivalent to confidence vote. Even talking about interesting…(1/3) https://t.co/DBcaPv2TN8

— Anushka Asthana (@AnushkaAsthana) November 29, 2017

‘He’s useless. He’s absolutely useless. He’s as useless as a marzipan dildo.’

Whenever I think of David Davis I’m reminded of the marzipan quote by Malcolm Tucker from The Thick Of It, which is why I’ve been laying David Davis as next PM/Tory Leader markets for quite some time and the above tweets seem to reinforce those views.

Of course it maybe a case on confirmation bias on my part but then we have Jacob Rees-Mogg saying “(There is a) growing concern that Her Majesty’s government seems in these negotiations to be dancing to the tune of the European Commission.”

The British proposal is understood to commit the government to work towards “avoiding regulatory divergence” in Ireland after Brexit even if the rest of the UK moves away from European rules. This would involve the government devolving a package of powers to Northern Ireland to enable customs convergence with the Irish Republic on areas such as agriculture and energy…

…The outlines of a “standstill” transition arrangement, effectively prolonging British EU membership, are ready to be tabled after the expected sign-off on the principles of a withdrawal deal at the December summit. EU sources said that the transition deal could be agreed in January before negotiations begin on a future trading relationship.’

Ensuring Northern Ireland has a different relationship with the EU than the rest of the UK doesn’t seem the sort of thing the Conservative and Unionist Party of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should be promulgating, and I’m sure effectively prolonging the UK’s membership of the EU will not enamour David Davis to Leavers.

Much like Boris Johnson’s tenure as Foreign Secretary is confirming all the worst fears about Prime Minister Boris Johnson, David Davis’ tenure as Brexit Secretary is confirming all the worst fears about a Prime Minister David Davis, incompetent and the Minister for Winging It (Badly), bet accordingly with those two.

TSE

PS – It was also a bad 48 hours for Gavin Williamson, who as Chief Whip was the genius behind the government boycotting opposition day debate votes that has led to these problems for the government.  Quite frankly his ‘cleverness’ is the epitome of a Pyrrhic victory with could see David Davis held in contempt of Parliament. He seems another definite lay on the next PM/Tory leader markets.