Good morning from Dublin before I set off for the next bit of this visit.

Were I Johnson, I would resign and recommend to the Queen that Corbyn tries to form a Government. That puts Corbyn in a really tricky spot. If he tries to govern as Labour, he will face a no confidence vote of his own which will force an election, perhaps even on Johnson's timescale. If he is smart enough to govern as head of a GNU, they can order a referendum... but then what? Hang around for months until it is completed? Or call an election, which if Boris wins he can use to cancel the referendum. And even if the GNU managed to stay together to issue a LEGALLY binding referendum before an election, if the Tories won the election I suspect he could have a vote to dismiss the referendum because he did not agree with the phrasing. At which point the EU, having already given an extension for the election and referendum and seen the UK reject it would not permit any more extensions and Johnson finally gets his no deal around December.

Kipling's advice is something we should bear in mind after this week "If you can meet with triumph and disaster/And treat those two imposters just the same.' The disastrous performance of Johnson this week can be spun as Parliament blocking the people, and no doubt will, even though totally false.