Boris calls time on Theresa May’s premiership

It might have been said of Boris – the Christian name alone secures recognition – that nothing became his tenure of the office of Foreign Secretary so well as his departure from it. To say that Boris has often been lacking in judgement would be otiose; but on this occasion he got it right.

It was obvious from the start that this was Johnson in the role of homme sérieux; any other strategy would have been disastrous. Even his famous coiffure signalled the significance of the occasion: though hugely dishevelled, it had subtly been transformed from the appearance of a politician who while visiting an aerospace factory has been sucked into the wind tunnel, into something more resembling an 18^th-century Macaroni dandy. His unruly fleece may have given hope to those who thought he might “do a Howe”, but they were doomed to disappointment.

The speech was perfectly calibrated, opening with a list of Foreign Office achievements that sounded almost persuasive and paying generous tribute to colleagues, not least to the Prime Minister. There were no classical tags (too big a hostage to fortune in case Rees-Mogg spotted a solecism in the use of the Latin pluperfect and corrected it).

Boris opted for courtesy, rational argument and well marshalled facts. His praise of Theresa May’s Lancaster House speech, which became the axis of his own argument, was lavish and deadly, for he had come not to praise Theresa but to bury her. By emphasising his strong support of both her Lancaster House and Mansion House speeches, he deftly highlighted the enormous and insupportable shift in her position from those declarations to the shame of Chequers, justifying his resignation.

It was a reminder to those of us who have never been fans of Boris just how good he is, on a good day. This was one of his best. The speech, which could not have been more controlled, objective and reasonable sounded like the clang of the dungeon door on Theresa May’s last hopes of survival. Boris perfectly caught the mood of the House and the tone to which it best responds; but the speech’s lethal effect will be felt in the benighted, betrayed Conservative associations out in the shires.

He also exuded patriotism in a way that is closed off to any Remainer. It is doubtful that any politician has more enemies than Boris Johnson, but it did not feel that way, listening to his speech. Where all this will lead is unknowable. Boris is perfectly capable of blowing all the capital he amassed today in one frenetic blunder. Whatever happens, he indisputably did himself a lot of good this afternoon.