Downing Street has rushed to reassure an anxious British public today that the prime minister will leave her dinner with EU counterparts this evening in the middle of the main course and refuse to disclose what she’ll pay towards the bill.

It’s believed the move will be anticipated by her dining companions.

“They know what she’s going to do,” The Herald’s political correspondent revealed, “She’s going to turn up, the temperature in the room is going to drop a few degrees, she’ll attempt to compensate by trying out a WW2 themed knock knock joke she overheard Boris using, people will be deeply offended but will nod politely and then she’ll insist on choosing the wine because some advisor has mistakenly told her that’s how to take control.

The problem is Junker will already be smashed, having been on the schnapps since he had champagne for breakfast, so he’ll just slur and laugh at anything she does and make her increasingly feel like the fool she fears she is when she looks in the mirror late at night.

Barnier will let her go for it, knowing that if she thinks David Davis is capable of the most complex negotiation in modern British history than she either wants the negotiations to fail or she’s as clueless as she seems. But he’ll be texting anything she says to our sister publication The Brussel Sprout.

It doesn’t really matter from their point of view what she does about the dinner bill now, come December they’re having a big chunk of our financial services and a lot else as nervous company bosses start to trigger their contingency plans.”

Asked for further comment Downing Street added,

“Theresa is going to wait until there’s only one more bite of her steak tartare left before loudly slamming her spoon down, pushing back from the table and spending the rest of the evening shouting she’s not paying, it was food that repeats on you, by way of distracting from the fact she can’t find her way out of the room.”

It’s believed if none of that works than she’s going to try and roar like a lion. We’ve got them over a barrel. How will they afford dinner if Theresa refuses to contribute? The suckers.”