The real reason Boris is unfit to be prime minister

Three years ago, imagine that you had wanted to write a film script about a prime minister and his travails. By some coincidence, your draft bore a close relationship to Boris Johnson’s character and recent developments. We know the outcome. You would have been laughed out of the producer’s office. ‘Some of this is quite amusing,’ you would have been told. ‘You clearly have a talent for slapstick. But you have none for verisimilitude. You are writing about the head of government of a serious country, at a time of great events and challenges, at home and abroad. And this is how you portray the PM and 10 Downing Street? Donnez-moi un break.

How long a break? In the last few hours, Boris may have been granted a stay of execution. When Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is staged, there has always been a problem. How does the director give all those conspirators the room to sink their daggers into Caesar without the stage becoming hopelessly overcrowded? So can Sue Gray and Scotland Yard do their knife-work without tripping over each other and if not, how long a delay will be necessary? The theatre of the absurd has seized control of the government.