The PM’S sleight of hand in the Commons would fox Paul Daniels

Idon’t know why people waste money on books of Sudoku and cryptic crosswords. If you want a good brainteaser, simply go to the Parliament website, click the link to Hansard, and try to decipher Theresa May’s answers from PMQS. They’ll keep your cogs whirring for hours.

Of course, Mrs May is hardly the first prime minister to fob off MPS with slippery answers. But few of her predecessors share her remarkable gifts for obliquity. Take the extraordinary – but entirely characteristic – reply she gave in the Commons yesterday to a question about Brexit from Henry Smith (Con, Crawley).

The night before, Olly Robbins – Mrs May’s chief Brexit negotiator – had been overheard in a Brussels bar saying that, if MPS didn’t vote for her deal, she would delay Brexit. Mr Smith, a firm Brexiteer, was concerned. “Will the Prime Minister rule out a delay of Brexit beyond March 29,” he asked.

A simple, straightforward question, seeking a simple, straightforward answer.

Mrs May rose – and delivered a display of sleight of hand that would have flummoxed Paul Daniels.

“It’s very clear,” she said – as she always does, when she’s about to say

Mensa should make ‘deciphering Mrs May’ part of its admission tests. Then again, no one would get in

something very unclear. “The Government position is the same. We triggered Article 50. That had a two-year timeline. It ends on March 29. We want to leave with a deal, and that’s what we’re working for.”

A handful of Tories – presumably those who’d spent the duration of her reply daydreaming about lunch – murmured “hear, hear”, while the rest sat in silence trying to figure out what they had just been told. Mrs May had been asked to rule out delaying Brexit. In reply, she hadn’t said she would delay Brexit. But equally, she hadn’t said she wouldn’t delay Brexit, either.

Instead, she’d simply said that the two-year Article 50 period was due to end on March 29. And indeed it was. But that didn’t mean she wouldn’t ask for an extension. And if she wasn’t planning to ask for an extension, then surely, to reassure Brexiteers, she would have said so. Which must mean that she was planning to ask for an extension. Unless … unless she wasn’t planning to ask for an extension, but wanted Brexiteers to worry that she was, in order to scare them into voting for her deal. On the other hand … surely by not ruling out a delay, she encouraged Remainers to vote against her deal, because … the whole thing was a perfect riddle.

She might as well have said, “I can’t not deny that I won’t not rule it not out!” Or: “My first is in ‘Juncker’ and also ‘Tajani’, my second’s in ‘euro’ but not ‘EU army’ …” It would have been no less clear.

Mensa should make “deciphering Mrs May” part of its admission tests. Then again, no one would get in.