Govey Dick! It's a phrase my granny used to express surprise; as in Govey Dick the Environment Secretary is NOT resigning from government.

And after all the fevered speculation, it is a surprise that Michael Gove is not quitting the Cabinet. In the last year nine Cabinet ministers have gone, including two yesterday.

The biggest departure was Dominic Raab, the Brexit Secretary, or "Raab C Exit" as it was branded on Twitter.

He was the second Brexit Secretary, after David Davis, to quit over the deal that they were negotiating.

It seemed to open the floodgates, with Work and Pensions Secretary Esther McVey and other junior members of government going too.

It piled pressure on the Prime Minister Theresa May. On Tuesday she spent five hours persuading her Cabinet to back her deal, before making a statement outside Downing Street.

Yesterday saw the spate of resignations, before she delivered the same statement to MPs then endured three hours of Commons questions.

Some of her own backbenchers called on her to be the next resignation. Then she made pretty much the same statement again for the third time in about 24 hours and took questions from journalists where she made her position clear.

"Am I going to see it though? Yes."

So to today. Michael Gove was offered the post of Brexit Secretary. He turned it down because he would not be allowed to try to renegotiate parts of the deal. He was widely expected to resign but decided to stay on as Environment Secretary.

That seems to have closed the floodgates on resignations for the moment and the fevered speculation of the media has turned to when there will be a confidence vote in Theresa May as leader of the Conservative party.

To trigger that vote 48 Conservative MPs would have to write letters to the chairman of the backbench 1922 Committee saying they no longer had any confidence in her leadership.

So far we know of 20 letters, but given that they have been drifting in for months and speeded up yesterday when Jacob Rees Mogg very publicly put his in, followed by some other Brexit supporters, it's hard to imagine the 48 letters are not already there.

But only Sir Graham Brady, MP for Altrincham and Sale West, chairman of the 1922 Committee knows for sure.

Deputy Prime Minister David Lidington is in Edinburgh today, he says the Prime Minister could survive a confidence vote.

In 1995 John Major pre-empted a no confidence vote by resigning, standing again and winning. I suspect Theresa May would try the same, but the rules have changed.

So she will just have to wait until the 48 letters are in, but seems certain to take it on and carry on as long as she can.

If you're reading this and wondering why is it all about the Tories, well this has been their thing for about as long as I can remember. It has plagued every leader since Margaret Thatcher.

Theresa May says she is putting the needs of the country, after the UK voted for Brexit, before her own and staying on to deliver what she says is the best Brexit deal that could be negotiated.

Whether she will get to deliver that remains to be seen.

Even if she wins a confidence vote in her party, there is clearly no majority in the House of Commons for her deal.

So even if she gets it through a special EU Council on the November 25, it's not going to get though the Commons the week after.

Govey Dick what a mess!