Tory leadership debate: who won Emily Maitlis’ Brexit show trial?

Five hopefuls in a shallow arc of bar-stools. Last night, the BBC summoned the Tory candidates for a Brexit show trial overseen by Emily Maitlis. Michael Gove made an early impact with a burst of crazy egoism. ‘Because I started this, I will finish it.’ He forgot that countless campaigners such as Bill Cash, Dennis Skinner and (oddly enough) Jeremy Corbyn have been lobbying to extract Britain from Europe since long before Gove bought his first toot of coke.

Boris seemed genial but over-relaxed. He leaned back on his bar-stool like an embroidered pillow hoping no one would sit on him. No one did. He failed to impress but he got away with it. A gaffe-free night is a victory of sorts. Plenty of guff though. Here’s a sample:

‘Nobody wants a disorderly no-deal [Brexit] of that kind and I think actually there’s a wide measure of consensus that we must get out by 31st October.