Urgent rapping on the front door woke me. I opened it in my dressing gown to find a deeply distressed young woman.

As it was early and I was bleary I didn’t grasp quite everything she said.

But the gist of it was she was my neighbour from across the road who had left her purse and keys in her house and locked herself out.

Her sister was gravely ill in hospital and she needed money for a taxi which she would repay on her return.

I’d never seen her before, but as I live in the isolated anonymity of London that wasn’t surprising. Few of the capital’s residents could pick their neighbours out in an ID parade.

Parade: find your neighbour (
Image:
REUTERS)

Even though I was half asleep I was awake to the real possibility this was a con.

But I thought of how I’d feel if my daughter was in similar trouble and no one helped her. So I handed over a £20 note for the cab fare, and prepared myself for never seeing it again.

Brexit is a bit like that . Chief EU negotiatior Michel Barnier is the woman at the front door opened by Theresa May in her dressing gown.

She gives him £39billion knowing she may get little for it. But a part of her must believe Barnier is acting in the best interests of both the EU and Britain.

Barnier: at the front door (
Image:
REX/Shutterstock)

I’m not so sure any more. While Brexit’s most intractable problem is keeping the Irish border open , redrawing it in the Irish sea is no solution.

That would put Northern Ireland under EU not British law and effectively separate it from the UK, the issue that has caused bloodshed in Ireland for centuries.

And if you think another civil war far fetched just ask bomb disposal teams who diffused 93 devices in Northern Ireland from July to December last year.

Mrs May was right to say no British PM could stomach such a plan .

May: rejected plan (
Image:
Getty Images Europe)

Barnier may not be pulling a fast one, any more than that young woman on my doorstep. She may yet return my money.

But it’s been a month now and she hasn’t. Draw your own conclusions.

NELSON’S i

Snow: no skiing (
Image:
PA Wire)

Sign of the times: “Chatham Ski Centre is closed due to weather.” Snow stops skiing. Priceless.

CRACKING THE WHIP

Sinn Fein’s seven MPs are being urged to take their Commons seats to vote against that hard border splitting Ireland.

And it would really screw up Theresa May’s slender hold on power - courtesy of the DUP - if they did.

Trouble is, there’s nothing Republicans drool over more than history.

Sinn Fein MPs: no seats (
Image:
Carl Court)

Constance Markiewicz became the first woman to be elected an MP in 1918, but as she was a Shinner she wouldn’t enter Parliament so that honour went to Tory Nancy Astor a year later.

And it’s unlikely Sinn Fein will break with that tradition. Which is a pity.

If they could just forget history they could change history.

Gove loses out in straw poll

Gove: man of straws (
Image:
REUTERS)

Michael Gove wants to ban plastic straws and suggests it’s the EU and their pesky rules which stop him. If the Environment Secretary wants to reduce throwaway plastic he could start with the House of Commons where Brussels has no jurisdiction. Last year 12,250 straws were handed out to MPs to sip their fizzy drinks like toddlers at a kids’ tea party, which was 3,250 more than in the previous year.

It's a fag to be out in the cold

Smoking area (
Image:
DubFireBrigade/Twitter)

A Commons motion urges lifting the ban on snus now the oral tobacco pouch is credited with cutting smoking in Norwegian women to one per cent and reduced adult smoking in Sweden to five per cent. There could be another reason for such low rates. In Scandinavia it’s too bloody cold to go outside for a fag. Like Britain last week.

No crossing the plimsoll line

A Commons doorman almost refused the PM’s spokesman, James Slack, entry to PMQs on Wednesday citing his inappropriate footwear.

Slacker was wearing trainers to get through snow more easily. So was I, but I slipped in behind him before anyone noticed.

The PM’s spokesman only avoided ejection by indicating Jeremy Corbyn who was similarly shod.

MPs desperate to go free range

Labour’s Roger Godsiff tabled a Commons motion deploring creatures “confined for the whole of their productive lives in unnatural, unpleasant, crowded” conditions. He was referring to pheasants, but it could apply equally to MPs cooped up like battery hens in Parliament.