Vintage Boris but sadly wide of mark

Just in case the Conservative Party was in any danger of forgetting about Boris Johnson, he took the opportunity to remind friends and enemies alike of his undoubted talents with a fringe appearance that was better attended and more enthusiastically received than many in the main Tory conference hall.

In style, it was a bravura performance, of typical Johnsonian audacity and, to be fair to him, some intellectual substance. It was a wellconstructed critique of his party leaders’ plans for Brexit, and, even more ominously, ranged freely across the political landscape.

But Boris is wrong. His plan for a free trade deal or even trading with the European Union on World Trade Organisation terms would inflict vast damage on the British economy. Nor did the rest of his plans add up. He wanted more education and training for the young, a housing revolution, and a cash injection for the NHS. He is either in denial about the economic cataclysm that a hard Brexit will inflict, or he sincerely believes that some mystical ‘‘believe in Britain’’ will compensate for a collapse in investment and job creation.

Time is running out for Johnson, and he knows it. It might not be too late to ‘‘save Brexit’’, as he puts it, but it is too late for his personal ambitions to be fulfilled. He will join the distinguished ranks of ‘‘the best prime ministers we never had’’, which is probably more than he deserves.