Boris’s big strength could soon become a Tory weakness

First, a clarification. I may previously have suggested that Boris Johnson is an unprincipled egomaniac wholly lacking in both moral character and political judgement. I may have intimated that he does not possess the empathy or imagination a prime minister requires and that he would neither lead his party to a crushing election victory nor deserve to. I now acknowledge that he is, in fact, one of the great political leaders of our lifetime, an English Charles de Gaulle arriving in the nick of time to rescue his country from its own folly. If that means rewriting the rules then let them be rewritten for we shall all be the better for it. In years to come we shall speak of him as a twenty-first century Benjamin Disraeli.

With that misunderstanding cleared up, it would be churlish as well as absurd to deny the scope and scale and extent of the victory the Conservative party won this week.