DOES Jeremy Corbyn detect some cracks in the Prime Minister’s armour over Brexit, leading to the possibility of an early general election – which he fervently believes Labour would win even though the Conservatives are seven points ahead in the polls?

Rarely has a Government been in such a state of public turmoil and vicious civil warfare as is this administration. But even if the present dire circumstances lead to the downfall of Theresa May – which is now at least a possibility – that in itself would not necessarily lead to a general election.

But with at least one junior minister resigning over Brexit, and Dominic Grieve, the arch anti-Brexiteer (although he would deny that description) saying he and fellow Tory rebels could collapse the Government, no wonder Corbyn is looking chipper these days. What’s more, the election of a new Tory leader, should these events come to pass, would assuredly cause yet more damaging infighting in Conservative ranks, including, most dangerously of all, in the Cabinet itself.

I do not want to overstate the situation, but if Tory fortunes continue to slither downhill, their ability to govern properly could be seriously depleted. And the great British public is beginning to wonder why so little progress is seemingly being made in the Brexit negotiations.

What people are demanding is that Theresa May and her cohorts now start thumping the table and stamping their feet at the Brussels negotiations. As has been pointed out President Trump, if he were on our side, would frighten the life out of the obdurate and flinty EU negotiators who are now trying to squeeze every drop of blood out of the UK.

THE drama over the 12-year-old severely epileptic boy and the medication he so urgently required need never have happened, indeed should never have happened. His mother Charlotte Caldwell, of Co Tyrone, returned from Canada only to have her supply of medical cannabis – banned in this country – confiscated from her by airport customs officials. This is, for her son, life-saving medication.

It seems strange customs officials did not react to her distraught pleadings at the airport. It was only when doctors said this was a life-or-death emergency that Home Secretary Sajid Javid found some special exemption to the rule to allow just one of the 20 bottles to be returned to her.

It beggars belief that a child could have been facing possible death because of the existence of a law which in cases like this one, could actually be sounding what amounts to a death knell. Now the child’s mother is demanding meetings with the Home Secretary and Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, requesting that the law is changed so other children and their parents do not themselves have to face such an ordeal.

As it is, she will have to fight more battles to have restored to her the other bottles when this runs out after 20 days. This is shameful. And, happily, some MPs are already calling for a change in the drugs law. This must happen – and quickly too – to preserve the lives of other children in similar circumstances. The present situation simply cannot be allowed to continue.