THE latest Cabinet away day could hardly have been as disastrous as the last. On that occasion the get together at Chequers ended in the resignations of David Davis and Boris Johnson and led to a 48-hour spell when Theresa May’s government teetered on the brink.

The PM brought her ministers to Gateshead's Sage music venue yesterday as part of a charm offensive to convince the North-East - the region whose economy is tipped to suffer the most savage blow post Brexit - that her Government will deliver a deal to “work for every corner of the UK”.

The Sage was fresh from a weekend hosting stars of country music. Mrs May and her increasingly anonymous backing band tried to strike up some notes of harmony around the type of Brexit D.I.V.O.R.C.E they will serve up.

She may be a capable enough performer in a cabinet meeting but put her in front of the general public and Mrs May seems to get stage fright. In a Q&A with members of the public at a factory on Tyneside she struggled to answer the simplest questions, such as what the woman with “the world’s most stressful job” did to unwind. “Err, walking and cooking, because you get to eat it as well as make it,” was the gist.

It was pleasing nevertheless to see her and her senior team leave the Westminster bubble and see a bit of our “corner of the UK.” The big announcement, involving cash for the East Coast mainline, was a re-announcement but playing something the crowd has already heard goes down well on tour.

More worrying for Mrs May as she goes into the summer recess will be a YouGov poll which showed just over one-in-10 Britons think the Chequers plan would be good for Britain and the same poll showed public support for Boris Johnson to take over as PM.

She might have survived another savage spell in No.10 but it’s hard to see Mrs May as anything more than a warm up act for a crowd pleasing headliner.