How much longer do we have to pretend that Brexit might work?
My Irish mother taught me always to try to see the good in people. But it has to be admitted that the attempt to see the good in Alexander “Boris” Johnson would, in another of her favourite sayings, “try the patience of Job”.
It is already a commonplace in this country and around the civilised world that our prime minister is a charlatan on an industrial scale. John Major knew what he was about when declaring, as a prime minister himself, that Johnson should not even be allowed to fight a parliamentary seat.
The late Lord Carrington resigned as foreign secretary on principle over the fiasco that led to the Falklands war in 1982 – the war generally thought to have saved Margaret Thatcher’s skin after she’d achieved the dubious distinction of being the most unpopular prime minister since the second world war. Many years later, Carrington found himself listening to some young-fogey Tories discussing the case for making Johnson prime minister. There was a pause. “Anyway,” said the good Lord, “he won’t do.”
There are some Johnson loyalists who say he should do the decent thing and resign as honourably as he can in the circumstances. But most witnesses to the sorry spectacle of his premiership think he couldn’t spot a decent thing even if it were a favoured horse running in the 3.30 at Newmarket.
I am reminded of Dostoevsky’s short story A Bad Business. Things go badly wrong when the general, whose driver has disappeared, turns down a lift from a colleague and heads off into the night, with unfortunate repercussions. It has been a Bad Business since Johnson, who – notwithstanding his irresponsible reporting of fantasy stories about Brussels – was in no doubt that it would be crazy for the UK to leave the EU, but decided to put
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