What’s a backstop? Depends who you ask

When is a backstop not a backstop?

The issue of what precisely it is should perhaps have been cleared up last week, when the Collins Dictionary declared it one of the words of the year. With enviable clarity, it defined a backstop as “a system that will come into effect if no other arrangement is made”.

Unfortunately, ‘backstop’ has something in common with some of the other words on the Collins shortlist, ‘gammon’, ...