In the end, Sunak made the eye-catching move of drafting a full resignation statement. The words were shared with Lord Hague, the former Tory leader and a Times columnist, who had preceded Sunak as MP for Richmond. Soon, with more people at the company also having separately found out about the draft statement, whispers of the dramatic move were spreading among senior figures at Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper. Brendan Clarke-Smith, a Johnson loyalist elected in his 2019 landslide as MP for Bassetlaw, tweeted that he was “appalled at what I have read and the spiteful, vindictive and overreaching conclusions of the report”. Despite the absence of proof, the idea of great forces thwarting him – money, a rival and a former adviser turned nemesis all wrapped up together – somehow appealed. His latest (but not necessarily final) tome is almost as elegantly written as its predecessors, even if his hero’s forced resignation must have messed with the publishing schedule. If Johnson had been a historical figure, a cavalier whose antics did no harm to the people around him, I would have enjoyed reading this homage almost as much as Gimson seems to have enjoyed writing it.

The Fall of Boris Johnson is the explosive inside account of how a prime minister lost his hold on power. From Sebastian Payne, Director of Onward and former Whitehall Editor for the Financial Times. Payne’s thesis is that these one-off factors – the wrong Brexit policy, the wrong leader (and the charismatic appeal of Boris Johnson, who Gray believes is forging a new politics combining one-nation Toryism and old Labour values) – map on to a deeper problem that should have Labour deeply worried. Structural, economic and societal changes, he writes, have changed the makeup of constituencies such as North East Derbyshire and North West Durham. The old industrial way of life – steel, coal, ships and the rest – inculcated a sense of communal pride and mutual dependency. The Labour party was its political expression. But Payne suggests that this collectivist culture has been replaced in many areas by relatively prosperous commuter belts and more individualistic lifestyles and forms of work. The “Barratt Britain” of private housing estates and comfortable homeowners has crept up on the red wall, and superseded old loyalties in the postindustrial age. Significant parts of Labour’s lost England are becoming more middle-class and therefore more well-disposed to the Conservatives. “Many of the places that voted Conservative for the first time,” Payne writes, “are content, and the dystopian version of society painted by Labour in 2019 was sharply out of kilter with the world they know. This suburban lifestyle is where future elections will be fought.”With unparalleled access to those who were in the room when key decisions were made, Payne tells of the miscalculations and mistakes that led to Boris Johnson’s downfall. This is a gripping and timely look at how power is gained, wielded and lost in Britain today. Are the Tories better off since Johnson resigned? No. The economy is terrible; their polling is far worse; Labour’s victory seems all but guaranteed. Brexit is questioned again. We have gone from tax cuts, under Truss, to tax rises, under Rishi - and all without the consolations of good humour.

Sometimes Cabinet ministers would text Johnson in a frantic lobbying effort during group video calls. Others used WhatsApp to get round the usual channels. Securing face time was seen as a third route to influence, leading to tussles about who would be last with Boris before a decision was taken. In Johnsonland, a yes was not guaranteed to stay a yes; a no need not be the end of the debate. During the countless internal debates about pandemic policy that followed, the pair were often of similar mind. But as the crisis eased with the mass rollout of vaccines in early to mid-2021, the focus turned to how to manage the post-pandemic economy. Johnson, with his populist instinct, was a big spender, having vowed to end austerity and seeing pound signs as the easy way out of many political binds. Sunak had a firmer ideological commitment to traditional low-spend, low-debt and ideally low-tax Tory economics, seeing fiscal prudence as the way forward. Susan Scott, from Ampthill in the Mid Bedfordshire constituency of Nadine Dorries, said Boris Johnson ‘told us to follow the rules and then broke them’. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer Photographs and video of Johnson jogging round the grounds of his new Oxfordshire mansion in garish floral shorts, and heading through airports after lucrative overseas speaking engagements, had already underlined his dramatic exit from Westminster politics, even before the privileges committee report was published.As Johnson liked to remind aides when things got turbulent, almost every Tory MP has half an eye on becoming prime minister. He spoke from personal experience. The Prime Minister had just been told that the second most important figure in his government had quit. Rishi Sunak was out – and without giving his boss any warning. No meeting was requested by the Chancellor to explain his reasons, as had been the case with Sajid Javid, the departing Health Secretary, earlier that day, 5 July 2022. There was no conversation over the phone; not even a text. It fell to the Number 10 political secretary to tell his boss a resignation letter was on the way. Johnson was raging. ‘Who the f--k does he think he is?’