At this perilous hour, what WILL it take for the Chancellor to train his guns in the right direction?

The whole of the political class agrees about one thing. theresa May has several alps to clamber over if the Government’s Brexit deal is going to get through the house of Commons in 12 days’ time.

The odds against her appear gigantic. If she pulls it off against the expectations and predictions of the commentariat, it will be one of the most extraordinary political achievements of modern times. It follows that she needs to call in every favour and twist every arm.

Will her hopes have been raised and her spirits sent soaring when the Chancellor of the exchequer stepped into the prime slot on radio 4’s today programme yesterday morning?

It’s true that the two of them have had a shaky relationship. But politically she and Philip hammond find themselves in the same ditch — or at any rate neighbouring ones — and the pragmatic Chancellor has previously given every indication of supporting the deal.

yet what he said during the interview did not in any sense strengthen her precarious position. On the contrary, it weakened it. the question is, how much of his virtual demolition job was deliberate and how much accidental?

the oddity is that, during a febrile day in which the Chancellor failed to offer Mrs May any useful support, the Governor of the Bank of england, Mark Carney, produced some apocalyptic predictions of short-term disaster in the event of no deal. these were apparently designed to bolster the Prime Minister’s approach and convince tory MPs and others to back the Brexit deal she is proposing.

Mr hammond’s first failing was to avoid identifying himself strongly with an agreement that is, after all, supposed to be official Government policy, underwritten by all members of the Cabinet.

On seven occasions he referred to the Prime Minister’s or Mrs May’s ‘deal’, ‘option’, ‘plan’ or ‘proposal’. Not once did he insert the word ‘Government’ before any of these nouns, or specifically associate his office as Chancellor with the agreement.

BY REPEATEDLY representing the deal as somehow belonging to the Prime Minister alone, Mr hammond unhelpfully encouraged the idea that it had very little to do with him.

this impression was heightened as he tried to explain the treasury’s latest forecast. he asserted with oracular authority that in 15 years’ time ‘ the economy will be slightly smaller in the Prime Minister’s preferred version of the future partnership’ than it would be if Britain remained in the EU.

Why on earth did he venture down this dangerous path? for the Government’s official position is that staying in the european Union is not on the table. So there is little logic in referring to a possibility that has been formally excluded.

More seriously, it is idiotic to predict the size of the British economy in a decade and a half with any claim of accuracy. No one except God can know if it will be bigger or smaller as a result of Mrs May’s — I should say ‘the Government’s’ — deal than it would be if the UK were still part of the EU.

after all, official short-term forecasting has already been shown to be defective. a treasury document issued before the June 2016 referendum stated that, if voters plumped for Leave, within two years ‘Britain’s economy would be tipped into a year- long recession with at least 500,000 jobs lost and GDP around 3.6 per cent lower’.

If the treasury can get its stargazing so dreadfully awry looking only two years ahead, why should we have any degree of confidence when its boffins peer 15 years into the future?

I don’t say that all economic forecasting is wrong-headed, only that it should always carry the severest health warning. Mr hammond signally failed to offer this yesterday, using the word ‘will’ rather than the judicious phrase ‘might possibly’.

It is noteworthy that on Monday in the Commons theresa May herself expressed proper scepticism about crystal ball-gazing. ‘I think it would be interesting for this house to debate the extent to which economic forecasts can be described as facts,’ she said.

Presumably she knew that Philip ‘Nostradamus’ hammond would shortly be taking to the boards with his sheaf of astrological charts, and wanted to throw a small spanner in his works.

following the publication of the treasury figures yesterday morning, Mrs May didn’t jettison her suspicions during Prime Minister’s questions. her statement that ‘the analysis shows the deal we have negotiated is the best deal for the economy and delivers on the results of the referendum’ was at odds with Mr hammond’s gloomy prognostications on the today programme.

Was the Chancellor being calculatingly subversive? he is an intelligent man who weighs his words carefully, so it is hard to think he was unaware of the effect of what he said.

Instead of distancing himself from ‘Mrs May’s plan’ and suggesting that economically it would be less advantageous than remaining in the EU, he could have issued some dire warnings to unrealistic hardline Brexiteers.

the truth is that the treasury forecast that GDP will be between 7.7 per cent and 9.3 per cent lower in 15 years’ time in the event of a no-deal Brexit is practically worthless.

as custodian of the nation’s finances, Mr hammond would be better employed in persuading rebel tory MPs of the probable short- term consequences over the next one, two or three years of our leaving the EU without any agreement — and, it must be said, with virtually no preparation.

FEW Brexiteers still advocate no deal as their preferred outcome. Nevertheless, should they vote decisively against the Government’s plan, that could conceivably lead to our tumbling out of the EU without any agreement.

If Mr hammond believes — as I suspect he does — that such an eventuality would lead to a collapse in house prices, economic contraction and a recession, he should say so.

this is what the Bank of england did yesterday. It suggested that leaving the EU without a deal would trigger a deep and damaging recession with worse consequences for the UK economy than the 2008 financial crisis. however, it believes the banks could cope with such an eventuality.

Some will say the Bank’s alarming warnings mark a revival of Project fear. But in contrast to the Chancellor’s harping on the outlook 15 years hence, they offer a spine- chilling short- term forecast that only the boneheaded will ignore.

to return to Mr hammond. the suspicion inevitably lingers that he believes the vote on December 11 is a hopeless cause, and so is contriving to undermine a deal he thinks is doomed.

Was he, by alluding to the economic advantages of staying in the EU, signalling his readiness to consider a second referendum when, as he apparently believes will happen, the vote is lost? Possibly.

More likely — since he has not so far been viewed as a supporter of a so- called ‘ People’s Vote’ — he was indicating his readiness to consider alternative solutions such as the so-called Norway option. this would involve Britain staying in the single market and unable to control EU immigration.

I don’t know what will happen if the vote is lost. No one does. My fear is that a near-irresistible bandwagon in favour of a second referendum would then be set in motion by the Labour Party, SNP, Lib Dems and some tories.

all the more reason for fighting for the Government’s Brexit plan while there is still time. the Prime Minister is entitled to expect that the Chancellor, whatever disagreements they may have had in the past, will at this perilous hour train his guns in the right direction.