Liam Fox's speeches now arrive pre-collapsed and are all the better for it

Dr Fox praised Britain’s ‘world-leading financial institutions’, ‘cutting-edge universities’ and ‘time zone’, only two of which he has managed to sabotage thus far, but no one is ruling out the third

Way back in 2017, it used to take several minutes before anything Theresa May’s government said or did fell spectacularly apart – budgets, manifestos, that sort of thing.

More recently it has become normal for ministers to look ridiculous in real time. Just listen to Boris Johnson on the Today programme on Tuesday morning, likening the Irish border to the border between Camden and Islington in North London, or anything David Davis has ever said.

But, life comes at you fast, as they say, and it should come as no surprise that it should fall to Trade Secretary Liam Fox to deliver what may be the Government’s first pre-collapsed speech.

Dr Fox came to Bloomberg’s grand new headquarters in the City of London to big up Britain’s bright future trading free from the shackles of the European Union. But several hours before it happened, Sir Martin Donnelly, who used to be the top civil servant in Dr Fox’s department, somehow allowed these words of his, that were meant to be delivered in a speech on Wednesday, to leak: “For the UK to give up existing access both to the EU single market, and to the preferential trade agreements which the EU has in place with over 50 countries, in exchange for its own bilateral trade deals at some future date, is rather like rejecting a three-course meal now in favour of the promise of a packet of crisps later.”

It meant that, in the street outside, pro-EU campaigners handed out packets of ready salted Walkers crisps to arriving journalists and guests. It was a gesture that was extremely well received, right up until said guests made it inside and on to the sixth floor, where the glass lifts open out into a vast Willy Wonka style world of free snacks, set against the London skyline, with ready salted crisps very much on offer. Arguably, in hindsight, campaign funds might have been better spent.

In the atrium, gleaming young men and women held iPads, clearing guests for entry. At the top of their screens, in size 48 font, it said “SMILE =)” though this was by no means the afternoon’s most dystopic aspect. At Bloomberg, if you’ve been before, they like to keep hold of your name and photograph, and reissue you a temporary pass with a previous picture. It meant that more than one guest had around their neck a portrait of themselves arriving at Bloomberg HQ in the pre-dawn darkness on 23 January 2013, not knowing what they would be about to hear – David Cameron committing to an in-out referendum on membership of the European Union. The Bloomberg building was in a different place back then. Its new home, appropriately enough, is directly opposite a notorious suicide spot.

Still, on to the substance of the speech. Before the crisp intervention complicated matters it was meant to be straightforward. Labour and Jeremy Corbyn have now vaguely committed to remaining in some kind of customs union with the EU after Brexit, which has prompted big business, to come out in favour of a radical socialist Labour Party, instead of the Conservatives. Liam Fox’s job was to sort all this as only he can, which is to have a go at them about it.

British business people, it turns out, still have a “cultural problem with exporting,” he explained, again, which mysteriously has not changed since the 18 months since he accused them all of being “too fat and lazy” and “always on the golf course” to take advantage of the opportunities he and his Brexiteer friends have been creating for them which they didn’t want then and don’t want now.

He praised Britain’s “world-leading financial institutions” and “cutting-edge universities”, all of which without exception despair of the damage done to them by Liam Fox. Indeed Michael Bloomberg, whose £1bn building in which he was standing, said only a few weeks ago that Brexit has “ruined Britain”, was “the stupidest thing any country has ever done” and said he probably wouldn’t have committed to building it if he’d known in advance what would happen.

Still, it wasn’t long before Dr Fox was moving on to the opportunities offered by being in the “right time zone to trade with Asia in the morning and the United States in the afternoon”.

This, admittedly, is not something he been able to get his hands on yet but it can’t be ruled out. It has been suggested that Dr Fox is seriously considering a suggestion put forward by the Chinese government, that the precondition of a free trade deal would be the entire UK switching to Shanghai time. According to leaked memos, Dr Fox has suggested that primary school children are currently “too fat and lazy” to want to go to school at 1am, and to focus on the “tremendous opportunities” of nocturnal life. More pragmatic voices in the department hope rebellion might be avoided with vague promises about pet owls.

Asked at the end, about the crisp intervention, Dr Fox had a sharp answer: “I think Brexit is a bit more complicated than a packet of Walkers.” If there was anyone out there with any concerns that the man doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing, well, worry no more.