Wars on ‘woke’, trans targets: Tory leadership contenders are behaving like student union revolutionaries

Whoever next walks into No 10 will face choppy waters, and it is not clear any of them know how to get the country back on track, writes Marie Le Conte

Johnson is gone but the midnight deadline and 10.37pm procrastination remain

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An annoying feature of column writing is that, sometimes, events occur at inconvenient times. You can have the best idea in the world but, if the world has moved on by the time your day of the week has come, there is nothing you can do about it.

Not too long ago, I realised I had found the perfect metaphor for Boris Johnson’s government. David Cameron had been the essay-crisis prime minister; Johnson was the 10pm master procrastinator.

For three years his government behaved like a 19-year-old with an essay due at midnight. He could be writing – should be writing – but no, hang on, he can’t possibly write with his desk by the window. The desk is the problem, he should move the desk now. Where should the desk go? Should it go by the bed? By the door? In the middle of the room? Upside down?