This is Spectator Radio and you're listening to The Spectator podcast with Isabel Hardman.

Hello and welcome to The Spectator podcast. I'm Isabel Hardman. This week, Theresa May prepares for her

last shot with Brussels, but can she get what she wants? I also talk to Stephen Gibbs,

a journalist on the ground in Caracas, about the nightmare in Venezuela. And finally,

we take a look at another big issue of the day, our induction hobbs simply reinventing the wheel.

Now with this week's votes in Parliament, Theresa May has been given one last chance to save

her version of Brexit. But will she succeed? James Forsythe writes in his cover article this week that

there is a slither of hope. The EU might budge, and even Labour MPs might be one on side. James

joins me now together with Peter Foster, the Telegraph's Europe editor from Brussels.

So James, just explain to us where we are after this week's votes.

This week has been a remarkable week because when Theresa May came back of her deal,

she made a massive point that this was the best deal, the only deal negotiable essentially,

then it wasn't going to get better than this.

She has now been forced to eat her words by Parliament. She is now saying she's going to go back

and replace the back, try and replace the backstop with alternative arrangements in inverted

commerce. And I think this is a sign of her predicament that this is considered a triumph

because this is undoubtedly better for her than what the alternative was earlier

in the week because if the Brady Amendment had failed, it would suggest that there was no majority

via her own party and her confidence and supply partners for anything at all. And if the Cooper

Amendment had passed, it would have by essentially saying that Parliament will never allow

no deal to happen. It would have removed whatever negotiating leverage she has with the EU.

This worry about what no deal might mean would have gone because it would have been clear that Parliament would never allow the government to go down that path.

...