Some pictures are worth a thousand words, but his one was worth just three: amateur, chump, fraud

In Boris Johnson’s defence, he does have some splendid answers to the questions he can answer – including his solution to Brexit, as drawn from the ‘Noel Edmonds Teach Yourself Guide To Cosmic Ordering’

In a marginally different context, you could weep for Boris Johnson. That one tiny difference would be that he wasn’t Boris Johnson. If he were someone else, almost anyone else, you could drench a triple-ply Kleenex at the sight of him drowning in the unfathomable depths of his own shallowness.

He has prepared for this for decades, reputedly since the nursery, and is terminally unprepared. He has sold himself for years as the plain-speaking antidote to the generic mealy-mouthed politico, and has nothing plain to say when asked the simplest questions. He has styled himself as the second coming of Winston Churchill, and his idea of a fightback is mutely waggling the white flag of peevish surrender.

He might still win this contest – though the doubts about that multiply almost by the hour as he ostentatiously unravels. But, even if he does, he has incinerated the artificial persona beyond identification by dental records. He has burned it so absolutely that the celebratory vote of no confidence threatened by a dozen Tory MPs would be less an act of assassination than one of euthanasia.

For this magna cum laude graduate in public relations from Ratner University, today’s fiasco (or the first of them; it’s lunchtime as I write) was hosted by Nick Ferrari on LBC. Or Radio Gaga, as Johnson’s impersonation of an Alzheimer’s sufferer seemed calculated to rebrand it.

To Ferrari’s credit, he did what Johnson’s media fan club is unwilling to do, and aired the weekend revelation that Steve Bannon virtually ghost wrote Johnson’s resignation speech last summer. Despite compelling evidence of this beautiful friendship (video of Bannon discussing it; corroboration from Nigel Farage), Johnson dismissed it as “codswallop”.

But in a country with an enduring knack for looking the wrong way, the focus was suitably misdirected. Apparently more significant than a prime minister semi-elect consorting covertly with a white supremacist is the aftermath from a Camberwell domestic. Who authorised the release of that long-lens photograph of him holding hands with Carrie Symonds during their bucolic idyll in Sussex is one of various mysteries. The smart money is on one of two men called Jeremy. But if it was a member of his campaign team, hurrah for this confirmation that Johnson, like someone else, hires the best people. Some pictures may be worth a thousand words. This one was worth three. Amateur. Chump. Fraud.

Ferrari was politer, preferring to dwell on the fine detail of when it was taken (at least a month ago by the length of Johnson’s hair), and how it found its way into the papers. Estimates of how often he posed these questions and was denied a sensible reply range upwards from 18. The most reliable is 23.

Now some questions are of course impossible to answer succinctly, if at all. What came before the Big Bang? If an omniscient deity sees everything to the end of time, and all is therefore predetermined, can humanity truly be said to have free will? What was Alf Ramsey thinking when he substituted Bobby Charlton in the 1970 World Cup quarter-final against West Germany in Leon, Mexico? Had Ferrari asked him any of the above, you’d have admired Johnson for candidly admitting he was beaten 23 times, or 23 million.

But “when was it taken?”, and “how did it get into the public domain?” don’t traditionally fall under the header of the Great Unanswerables.

In his defence, he does have splendid answers to other questions. His solution to sorting out Brexit, as drawn from page 94 of the Noel Edmonds Teach Yourself Guide To Cosmic Ordering, is to be more optimistic. He also has the answer to any post-Brexit economic difficulties. His answer is to “turbo-charge the economy”. When you think about it, that does have a certain brilliant simplicity. It’s so clever, you wonder why no one thought of it before. If only it had occurred to Philip Hammond three years ago, we’d all own villas next to the Clooneys’ on the banks of Lake Como.

With answers as impressive as these, it’s bewildering that Johnson chickened out of debating with Jeremy Hunt on Sky – and that his campaign manager reportedly wants to prevent any hustings at which he does deign to appear being filmed and livestreamed. It’s almost as if the political inspiration isn’t Churchill, but Abraham Lincoln – specifically his aphorism about it being better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.

If so, it’s a bit late for that. Johnson’s berth alongside Enoch Powell on the honours board of clever fools (that peculiarly English hybrid of high intellect and zero judgment) was assured a while ago.

He has three choices now. He can do the melodramatic volte-face, apologising with typically engaging sincerity for mistaking the Manuel “I know naaah-thing” act for a seemly audition for national leadership, and launching a less reticent fightback to the fightback. He can carry on as he is, staggering through interviews like a parrot whose owner confused an eighth of skunk with a nutritious avian breakfast, and directing his fabled optimism to the Tory membership’s limitless capacity to be charmed by grotesque inadequacy. Or he can ask Steve Bannon for the number of Dr Harold Bornstein, the physician who obediently judged Trump the healthiest man ever to enter the White House, and dictate a signed note excusing him from games for the next three weeks due to severe laryngitis.

In his position, I’d go for option three. The only words this laureate of entitlement has in reply to the question of why he wants to be prime minister are “Because I do”. What possible use for a voice can such a man have?