Taking stock of Johnson’s ups and downs just makes your head spin

What job will Boris Johnson be doing this time next week? Foreign Secretary? Backbench MP? Prime Minister? Assistant stockroom supervisor at the Melton Mowbray branch of B&Q?

After the confusion of yesterday, I have honestly no idea.

We woke to hear a Tory former chancellor saying that, as punishment for his Daily Telegraph article on the future direction of Brexit, Mr Johnson deserved to be fired. “In any normal circumstances,” yawned Ken Clarke on the Today programme, “he’d have been sacked.”

By lunchtime, rumours reached The Telegraph that Mr Johnson might be on the verge of resigning. Yet, at almost the same moment, 3,500 miles away, Mr Johnson was insisting that nothing could be further from his mind. A group of journalists in New York – where Mr Johnson, like Theresa May, is attending the General Assembly of the United Nations – swooped on the Foreign Secretary as he returned to his hotel, puffing sweatily, from a jog.

“You aren’t still going on about that article,” protested Mr Johnson – a picture of bewildered innocence. Resign? Perish the thought.

Why, he and his Cabinet colleagues were “a nest of singing birds”.

ITV’S Robert Peston then asked Mr Johnson if he’d spoken to the Prime Minister.

“I’ve spoken often to the Prime Minister,” said Mr Johnson, not meeting his eye.

Backing towards the lift, he said: ‘I’m not walking away from this interview but... we’re gonna get a great deal’

Yes, but today? Or even yesterday? Mr Johnson murmured something I couldn’t quite make out, but I think it included the words “all going fine”.

According to The Sun, Mr Johnson had told friends that he thought talks with the EU were doomed to fail. Was that right?

Mr Johnson rummaged through his hair.

“Honestly, we’ve been doing events on Burma, on the hurricane [Maria], on Libya, on Syria,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been focusing on,” he added.

Right. But would Britain get a good deal from the EU?

Mr Johnson paused.

“Yes, we’ll get a fantastic deal,” he said, throwing up his hands and backing away towards the lift. “I’m not walking away from this interview but…we’re gonna get a great deal! Take care!”

As it happened, Mr Johnson was staying in the same hotel as Mrs May. What a stroke of luck. The two of them could seize the opportunity to meet up and thrash out their differences, one to one and eye to eye.

Then again, maybe not. A reporter asked the Prime Minister what time she was going to talk to Mr Johnson. With a not entirely convincing smile, Mrs May replied that, while she was sure she would see him “at various stages”, they both had “very busy programmes”. She then moved swiftly to a different topic.

A puzzling day was rounded off in suitably odd style. Jacob Rees-mogg, Tory MP for North East Somerset, told Sky that Mr Johnson should be given “a knighthood”.

David Cameron had a habit of giving knighthoods to ministers at the same moment he sacked them. I’m sure this thought has not entered his successor’s mind.