Who’s in charge by now? Mike ‘Concrete’ Graham? A jar of Bovril with some mould in it? Morbius the Living Vampire?
I will always remember where I was when I heard Boris Johnson had resigned. It was 9.05am on Thursday 7 July, I was driving through Stamford Hill. This column had a final deadline of 10am and now I had 55 minutes to rewrite it. The bendy BBC Tory-trumpet Chris Mason broke the news via the government-amplifier of Nick Robinson’s mouth and, winding down my window, I was desperate to share my joy with someone. But the only human beings in the area were a group of Orthodox Jewish schoolboys by the library, who seemed bewildered by an old fat goy shouting something about a bastard having gone at them out of a passing Ford Fiesta.
But, even as a Metropolitan Liberal Elitist Remoaner, I am grateful to Johnson on many levels. When the country voted for Brexit, and then for Johnson, I knew years of chaos and a far right lurch lay ahead. I also realised Brexit and Johnson would be exactly the kind of wedge issues to guarantee me a lucrative stand-up career playing to grateful audiences of crying Remainers for the foreseeable future. Like the hedge fund manager Crispin Odey and the international businessman Arron Banks, I too benefited financially from Johnson’s Brexit.
Edinburgh fringe shows, and dates for the 2022-3 show, Basic Lee, are all on sale
