Philip Hammond’s resignation is inevitable given Boris Johnson’s insistence on prolonging the myth of no-deal Brexit

Editorial: There is simply no amount of government borrowing and investment that can fully make up for the hit the economy would take in such an event, a fact the chancellor and too few others recognise

So, farewell then, Philip Hammond, chancellor of the exchequer and very possibly the only adult left in the cabinet room. That David Davis, our chirpy but clueless former Brexit Bulldog, is being talked up as the new chancellor says much about the strangeness of British politics.

HM Treasury enjoys a reputation for being a Rolls-Royce machine, but it could not carry such an incubus as the likeable but intellectually underpowered Mr Davis. Mercifully, the job is more likely to go to the vastly more able Sajid Javid; but beware that he is no pragmatist.

Mr Javid is in fact a pretty hardline neo-Thatcherite and a votary of the cult of Ayn Rand, a “radical for capitalism”, mid-20th century novelist, philosopher and libertarian. The welfare state and the NHS lie at his mercy. Only in today’s Tory party can Mr Javid’s views be thought unremarkable: he will make George Osborne look like Mother Teresa.