Can the next Tory leader save Boris’s broken Britain?

Whatever else will be said about him in the days and years to come, Boris Johnson will leave No. 10 having achieved the full extent of his policy ambitions: become Prime Minister. After a little under three years in office, Johnson has been reduced to the status of squatter in Downing Street, pottering about with a cabinet consisting of Nadine Dorries and pocket lint, grumbling about leakers and betrayers.

Having successfully weaned itself off foxhunting, the Conservative party meanwhile is preparing for another bout of its favourite triennial bloodsport. The latest leadership contest promises to be as pleasingly brutal as the last few, and the candidates are already engaged in the traditional events of networking, spinning, and desperately distancing themselves from the government they were very happily serving in until last week.

Whichever candidate wins will have a tough act to follow: Boris swept to office with a massive majority and proceeded to squander it on protecting badly behaved MPs, handing Brussels control of Northern Ireland, and achieving nothing of actual note.