Michael Gove almost managed to keep a straight face, as he became the latest person forced to lie for Boris Johnson

‘The buck stops here,’ said Boris Johnson two weeks ago. No one should be surprised that the buck is already being shipped at high speed to Brussels

The curse of the Downing Street steps has struck again. With the possible exception of the door-opening jingle sung by David Cameron, it is now a firmly established rule of contemporary British politics that whatever a prime minister says, outside that black door, the opposite will happen.

Theresa May promised to tackle Britain’s various “burning injustices” which are too many to list here, other than to point out that she left office three years later with them all burning far brighter than they did when she started.

It is not three years, but a mere fortnight, since Boris Johnson announced he would take “personal responsibility” for whatever happens with Brexit. “Never mind the backstop, the buck stops here,” he said.

And lo, what do you know? Through some mad science, the buck appears to be making its way, entirely of its own volition of course, to Brussels.

Boris Johnson had been prime minister for barely 24 hours before he told Angela Merkel and anyone else who would listen that the only way to a Brexit deal is via “the abolition of the backstop.”

Sure as night follows day, the EU has been forced to repeat, as it has done for more than a year, that it will not be abolishing the Irish backstop. And it is this that has summoned Michael Gove in front of the TV news cameras to announce the following. “The EU is saying they’re not interested. They are saying, ‘No we don’t want to talk.’ I think that is wrong and sad. It’s not in Europe’s interests.”

Vaguely to Gove’s credit, he almost managed to keep a straight face while he came out with what he knows is execrable garbage.

No one should be surprised, at all, by the Johnson strategy. To make impossible demands that he knows cannot be met, then blame the other side for refusing to concede to them, is to be both a liar and a spoilt little child all at the same time, which of course is precisely what he is.

And we should be even less surprised by Gove’s willingness to stifle his chuckles and do the lying for him.

Three years ago, Michael Gove was happy to launch a Vote Leave video showing fighting in the Turkish parliament, combined with lies about how much the UK government was paying to ensure Turkey joined the EU.

A few months later, he would be desperately citing studies that claimed the EU referendum, which he had personally helped to win by personally scaremongering about Turkish immigration, had in fact made the UK “more welcoming to migrants”.

Which, to a certain extent, it had, in the sense that the tale of the Good Samaritan is about being more welcoming to Jews who’ve been beaten up. It’s just that Michael Gove is not so well placed to tell it, given he’s the one who’d been doing the beating.

Still, this is the Gove way. Who cares about the simple, blindingly obvious truth, when there’s a clever counterfactual debate-winning argument to be found?

You don’t get to be as big a legend down at the Oxford Union as Michael Gove once was, and then find yourself having to do anything so belittling as take any personal responsibility for the stunningly inevitable consequences of your own actions.

The buck stops here? Not a chance. The buck can sing the Cameron refrain of “do-do-do-do-do... right” for as long as it wants, nobody is going to be opening that Downing Street door to it for a second.