Judge Boris by what he does, not how he does it

The night before our last issue went to press, I received a message from the Prime Minister saying that he was sorry, that he had hoped to write the diary but couldn’t find time. No problem, I replied, he’d just seen off Jeremy Corbyn and had a Queen’s Speech to agree and deliver and our print deadline was 10.30 a.m. At 7 a.m. the next morning, I woke up to find a new message ‘Have done diary. Am finishing now.’ At 10.20 a.m.: ‘It’s done. 860 words.’ Then another message: ‘Still in car.’ At 10.28 a.m., with two minutes to go, I gave up hope. Then, at 10.29 a.m., it landed, word-perfect. Boris Johnson likes to take things close to the wire, often to the despair of those around him. But he also tends to deliver, under circumstances that would stump most other people. It’s useful to remember this when considering his premiership: Boris is deceptively haphazard. Don’t be fooled.