Sic transit Boris, who is still British PM but no longer newsworthy

De Gaulle,  Adenauer and Mrs Thatcher were great leaders, as Dr Kissinger has pointed out in his new book. Boris is certainly neither a hero nor a giant but in the words of Sellars & Yeatman Very Memorable.

Journalists tend to dislike him, partly from jealousy as he is one of them, partly because they know a lot about him for the same reason.

Simon Heffer loathed John Major and David Cameron and really loathed Boris Johnson.

Peter Oborne, who is moving leftwards, was once his friend but does too.

So does Peter Hitchens, who thinks Boris uninteresting. Yes and no.

'The astonishing thing about our departing Prime Minister is that he is so ordinary. See past the fake Edwardian growl, the artfully rumpled appearance and the little jokes and you find a rather dull person with no actual ideas or aims.

'He is a Bertie Wooster without a Jeeves, amusing at first but not so funny later, bound to get himself and you into impossible trouble.'

Roger Kimbell was certainly right when he said,

"In the sea of squishy gray on gray that is the political establishment, Boris stood out as a vibrant, technicolor force of nature."

He rescued Brexit from the horrible mess Mrs May made of it and won a landslide victory for his party and Brexit and for this reason I am delighted he became Prime Minister. Had he refused the demands for lockdown he would have been a hero indeed but he was not one and nor was he, as became evident, a Conservative or a Tory.