Boris Johnson’s plan is to say ‘Believe in Brexit’ in lots of different ways

The new prime minister made his Commons debut with lots of uplift and optimism but only a fog of words about the way ahead

Chaotic and unconvincing: Boris Johnson started off as prime minister as he usually does when making a speech. But before long he had found his groove. Once he was liberated from his prepared text, he entertained his own side, the press gallery and even some of his opponents with his knockabout comedy routine.

He used his predecessor as his foil. The memory of Theresa May was the straight woman to his boisterous performance. Many Conservative MPs were delighted. We knew that because they told their new leader so. How wonderful it is, they said, to have a sense of optimism and uplift on the front bench. “Gissa job,” they didn’t say, but they know that the new prime minister will be making his junior ministerial appointments today.

It was, in truth, refreshing to have a prime minister who can turn a phrase, who so obviously enjoys the cut and thrust of parliamentary debate, and who looked as if he wanted to be right where he was, at the despatch box, showing off.

His prepared statement was rubbish, and he raced through it at varying speeds. “Uplift!” he shouted. “Optimism!” I’m not sure if he used those precise words, but at one point he did say: “Since I was a child…” and I thought he was going to say, “I have wanted this job.” But he went on: “I remember respectable authorities asserting that our time as a nation has passed and that we should be content with mediocrity and managed decline.”

No one has said that since the early 1980s, but it gave him the chance to bark about making the UK “the greatest place on earth”.

The only content of his statement was a compendium of different ways of saying that we will definitely be leaving the EU on 31 October – “my absolute commitment”; “whatever the circumstances”; “to do otherwise would cause a catastrophic loss of confidence in our political system”.

His policy is that total belief and categorical assertion will make it happen.

It might work. The confidence and certainty might so inspire public opinion that it will strengthen support for the Leave cause and boost the Conservatives and their new leader in the polls, thus putting pressure on the EU and on parliament to bow to the will of the new Churchill.

But it is more likely that wishing won’t make it so.

Jeremy Corbyn gave one of his better performances. He managed to read out a line written for him that skewered his third prime minister neatly: “No one underestimates this country, but the country is deeply worried that the new prime minister overestimates himself.”

Liz Kendall, one of the rivals for Corbyn’s post, also put it well: “If optimism was all it took to get things done, thousands of people would be spending this blisteringly hot sunny day waltzing across his garden bridge and jetting off on holiday from Boris island.”

Johnson cheered up his own side – apart from the long list of MPs he had sacked, who will now join the diggers of trenches against a no-deal Brexit – and many journalists were relieved to welcome the return of humour to the government front bench. Johnson’s “invasion of the body snatchers” routine, mocking Corbyn’s capture, subjugation and reprogramming “as a Remainer”, was simple good fun. It almost left you misty-eyed.

But as for how the new prime minister is going to achieve his central mission of taking the country out of the EU by the end of October, he offered only a fog of words.