As Boris Johnson steps aboard the newly decorated Clown Force One, the world is laughing at Britain

There was a time not so long ago when British diplomacy was an understated, dignified affair. Now we’re a floating, flying museum piece, trying to sustain the trappings of global power

If I thought that a single British job would be saved by spending nearly £1m on repainting an RAF plane in Union Jack colours or recommissioning the royal yacht Britannia at a cost of some £150m – more valuable to the country than the just-closed Department for International Development, according to Penny Mordaunt – I’d be all for it. Expensive, yes, but at least there’d be someone in Wolverhampton or Dundee or Oldham whose able to put food on the table.

But of course it won’t. These latest ideas to relaunch “Global Britain” are typical lavish, wasteful vanity projects – gigantic toys, really – of the kind Boris so enjoyed “spaffing” money on when he was Mayor of London: the buses, bikes and bridges that bore his name. Never mind about free school meals for British kids or clean water in Malawi; let’s have a new yacht for the Johnsons to cruise around the Med – the one thing the country really isn’t crying out for.

Far from being new valuable national assets, these vanity schemes are all about those at the top enjoying themselves. They will do British interests no good. Like when Johnson found himself stuck on the zip wire waving two Union Jacks (possibly a deliberately staged PR stunt), Britain will be a joke, as are its present governing class.

The idea, I assume, is to impress foreigners. In the dream world of the future, when the new HMY Britannia wafts majestically into Hong Kong harbour with Boris, Carrie and Wilfred waving on the prow, President Xi and the entire politburo of the Chinese Communist Party will be there to greet him, and to kowtow with the gift of the restoration of the human rights and liberties – not only of Hong Kong’s citizens but those of the entire Middle Kingdom. They will, as their ancestors were, be dazzled by the Victorian grandeur of this power from beyond the seas. Maybe they’ll throw in Huawei as a special gift for Her Majesty. Prince Andrew could be on hand to accept the token.

The return leg could be undertaken on the now garishly decorated official jet. What shall this new Austin Powers-style international flying jest be named? Clown Force One? Boris’s Folly? Thunderbird 2?

They could stop off in Berlin. So awed will those primitive Germans be, or maybe overwhelmed by goodwill, that they’ll immediately replace all their official Mercedes and BMW limos with Jags and Range Rovers. Angela Merkel would be much safer too; after all, these fine British cars have recently been crash tested by the prime minister and Dominic Cummings themselves.

There was a time not so long ago when British diplomacy was an understated, dignified affair. The country had a reputation as a sensible place, run by sensible politicians; a nation that stood for tolerance and the shrewd pursuit of the national interest, its modern world-class industries enjoying easy access to the planet’s largest single market. A country with a generous, internationalist disposition and one that took it’s obligations in the world seriously – including to international development. We enjoy tradition, but it does not define us. All that.

Now we’re a floating, flying museum piece, trying to sustain the trappings of global power and prestige but without the economic strength or diplomatic influence to back it up. It’s like when “Emperor” Bokassa of the poverty-stricken Central African Republic spent a third of his country’s GDP in an absurd coronation ceremony.

In our case, with mass unemployment fast approaching, we’ve just got an old Etonian buffoon leading us into the second childhood of the British Empire, making meaningless speeches about putting a tiger in the tank and giving us back our mojo – and hoping that we can’t hear the rest of the world as it laughs at us.