Who will tell Boris it’s over?

In the past couple of minutes, five ministers have resigned as a co-ordinated group and Michael Gove is reported to have told Boris Johnson in private that it’s time to go. Kemi Badenoch, Lee Rowley, Alex Burghart, Neil O’Brien and Julia Lopez have quit in a joint letter in which they call for Boris Johnson to step aside ‘for the good of the party, and the country’. 

They are bright, ambitious MPs who could form the future of the party. They also make the government look as though it is not functioning, and is at risk of being populated with anyone Boris Johnson can find who wants to be a minister for five minutes, regardless of their suitability.