Sketch of the year: The jam is the plan for Theresa May

It’s funny to think there was a time when people mocked Theresa May’s plan for a ‘Global Britain’.

Who knows why. There could be any number of reasons really, though with hindsight it was perhaps a mistake to introduce the plan – basically, a new trade strategy – with such a heavy emphasis on jam.

For a while it seemed jam was going to become central to the UK economy – most likely growing into our biggest export. Oil, after all, is on the way out, while UK manufacturing has been in trouble for some time.

And so May wheeled out her plan. The plan was jam.

Of course, people mocked, but that was just because they didn’t know the full picture. For example, there was also marmalade.

The announcement came from the Department for International Trade – led by Liam Fox – which introduced the strategy with boasts of flooding France with “high quality, innovative British jams and marmalades”.

Fantastic. If someone works out how you make chutney, we could probably afford to shut down the financial sector and introduce a three-day week.

And this, it seemed, was the plan. Fox, alongside the then Brexit secretary, David Davis, and then foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, would tour the world, selling jam and marmalade out of a suitcase while making increasingly outlandish boasts about the benefits of leaving the single market. And it was fun while it lasted, though, sadly, two out of three are now gone. As a team, they weren’t so much ministerial as ministerical.

But while one of the most enduring mysteries surrounding Boris Johnson’s popularity remains his popularity, at least the last twelve months brought more details on the new ‘Global Britain’.

Probably the most in-depth explanation came from the PM, who used a keynote speech to outline her plans for the UK, which is clearly already a part of the world, to become more of a part of the world, while also withdrawing from European cooperation, and so becoming less of a part of the world.

As May put it: “I want us to be a truly global Britain – the best friend and neighbour to our European partners, but a country that reaches beyond the borders of Europe too.”

The PM then expanded further in February, using a speech in Germany to explain that: “We are a global nation – enriching global prosperity through centuries of trade, through the talents of our people and by exchanging learning and culture with partners across the world.”

This talk of Britain being global felt slightly at odds with her previous attacks on what she called ‘citizens of nowhere’ – apparently shorthand for people who leave their houses – though it’s equally possible that this was the rationale behind the Windrush scandal. After all, what could be more global than the UK deporting its own citizens and scattering them all over the world?

Meanwhile, with jam producers presumably working round the clock to innovate, the fishing industry emerged as a major cheerleader for Brexit.

The industry’s support had been based on the assumption that Brexit would allow British boats exclusive access to UK fishing grounds, with support then waning with the realisation that it wouldn’t.

Instead, it seemed, the UK was going to have to abide by EU fishing quotas until 2020. As Douglas Ross put it: “It would be easier to get someone to drink a pint of cold sick than try to sell this as a success.”

It was a very engaging image, you can’t deny that, though it did raise questions. Why a pint of sick, for example? Would a litre of sick have been too much? Or was Ross sticking with imperial? And why specify the temperature? Would warm vomit have been better or worse?

Most pressingly, what experience does Douglas Ross have in this area? How does he know so much about convincing people to drink sick out of a glass? It’s quite possible that, far from being an odd analogy, Ross evaluates every negative policy decision against its corresponding weight in sick.

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Closing down the libraries? He’d rather drink a shot glass of sick. Stopping a third child from accessing income support? Make it a bathtub.

It certainly seems fish do funny things to politicians, with SNP MSP Stewart Stevenson choosing to spend his Christmas attempting to send fish to David Davis to highlight his concerns over post-Brexit border delays.

And so while Ross was drinking vomit in an attempt at protest, Stevenson was buying a fish pie, wrapping it up in a parcel and attempting to convince his local post office that they should deliver it for him. You wouldn’t want to be stuck in that queue.

Apart from anything else, the whole thing raised serious questions over whether either Ross or Stevenson had ever been on a protest. Or seen one. They usually involve placards and marches, not filling up a pint of sick – he may own a keg – or putting a baffling and almost completely pointless strain on the postal service.

And so everyone is probably feeling pretty foolish for mocking the ‘Global Britain’ plan now, even if Theresa May will still need to placate the likes of Ross and Stevenson.

Time is of the essence, after all, and the PM will need to come up with a plan for accessing EU markets soon. In these circumstances, jam tomorrow won’t cut it.