My daughter has a fascination with traffic jams.

An innocent three-year-old who is without much concept of time and thankfully not yet affected by the demands of life, she giggles and enthuses about how much she loves traffic jams every single time the car slows to a snail’s pace behind a sea of bright, red lights.

I still haven’t worked out where her fascination comes from and she refuses to enlighten me but I do know she is one of the few people who would have loved to have been in Kent on Monday morning, sitting in one of the 89 lorries that helped stage a fake, government-funded traffic jam along the 20-mile stretch of road from Manston Airport to Dover port.

But she’s a child, she enjoys make-believe, silly games, joking and kidding around and waiting in traffic jams apparently. And while there are times in life when a dose of her enthusiasm and silliness are just the medicine needed, we’re beyond that with Brexit.

You see, Brexit is not child’s play, despite the fact this government continues to behave as though all of our futures and those of generations to come is part of some kind of silly game.

Just when I thought the UK’s preparations for a no-deal Brexit couldn’t get any more farcical; the lorry test was an example of another huge leap down to a level of stupidity and organised chaos even the most cynical commentators didn’t imagine possible.

The exercise was set up as a test run for vehicles that will inevitably end up stuck in long queues from Dover port if we crash out of the EU on March 29 without a deal. Congestion at the Channel ports caused by the reintroduction of customs checks on goods has been one of the most talked about negative effects of a no-deal exit.

But how organisers thought the rehearsal on Monday would duplicate the actual reality of 6,000 trucks that could be held at Manston airport in the event of a no-deal Brexit is beyond me. And yet Boris Johnson actually has the audacity to say (in his £275,000 a year column for the Daily Telegraph newspaper) that this (no-deal option) is closest to what people actually voted for!

Meanwhile, as the government practices managing traffic jams and awarding a £14million pound contract to a start-up ferry company with no ships, hundreds of thousands of hard-working people are facing the prospect of losing their jobs and suffering major changes to their lives as a result of a no-deal Brexit.

According to a report leaked to The Times newspaper last month entitled Economic Downturn, even a so called smooth Brexit will bring unemployment as a result of lower prospects for the economy. At the other end of the scale and the worst case scenario is the UK crashing out of the EU without any deal, which the report described as “chaotic”. According to the report, which was given to the Department of Work and Pensions, such a departure from the EU could see the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance rise by to £12bn in three years.

Current estimates suggest there would be 140,000 new claimants each month. You don’t need to be an expert in anything to surmise the ripple of effect of such high levels of unemployment and the subsequent need for higher welfare spending.

The government has been warned of the possible rise in homelessness and other societal impacts such as a rise in the use of food banks and suicide rates but has it even prepared for this prospect?

How can the public have any confidence in a government that seems committed to pouring money down the drain as it continues to show itself to be completely incompetent? Supporters of a no-deal say dire forecasts about the effects of leaving the EU without a deal are mere scare tactics.

But who would you rather believe? The growing number of people hoping the UK will see sense and rethink the entire process or those, like Johnson, who want to send the UK back in time and cast us all into an episode of Dad’s Army?