The government admits no-deal Brexit will be a catastrophe – yet it carries on regardless

In this hellscape we find ourselves in, there appears to be no review system to correct what is known in VAR parlance as ‘a clear and obvious error’

Orwell mayhem: John Hurt as Winston Smith in ‘1984’, a plotline that seems to be playing out before our eyes (Rex)

God knows who chose Yellowhammer as the name for the government’s clandestine no-deal contingency planning operation, or why. But I like to think it emerged from a mischievous subconscious. An anagram for that little bird, as fittingly tweeted yesterday, is “Orwell mayhem”.

The latest and so far most capacious Yellowhammer leak clarifies the mayhem ahead in detail as predictable as it is chilling. In health and social care, at air and sea ports, with food and petrol availability, on and either side of the Irish border, disruption on a scale unseen in a modern western democracy outside wartime awaits.

Orwell, meanwhile, is with us already. On secondment from the Ministry of Truth, Tory frontbencher Kwasi Kwarteng this morning described all this as “scaremongering … A lot of people are playing into project fear”.