Dick and Dom the clear losers as the Prime Minister’s attempt to steer the agenda collides with a red Ferrari

‘Nick Ferrari seethed and reddened, threatening to out-puce the iconic red of his namesake race car’

From the pingdemic to the Health Secretary’s escapades to the volcanic witterings of Dominic Cummings, our Government seems at the mercy of events, dear boy, events.

This week the PM tried to recapture the narrative – to steer the out-ofcontrol shopping trolley towards the middle of the aisle with a mixture of good news stories, agenda-setting briefings, and, yesterday, a sit-down interview with LBC anchor Nick Ferrari at Downing Street.

Days after the Police Federation had – awkwardly for the party of law and order – declared no confidence in the Home Secretary, the PM was evidently on a love-bombing mission. Boris expertly reeled off crime statistics and praised the brilliant boys in blue.

The vibe was friendly, like a couple of mates down the pub; Frost-nixon it certainly wasn’t, and yet the affable atmosphere proved oddly disarming. Just as the PM was getting comfortable, Ferrari would pop up like a stubborn weed on the No 10 lawn, derailing Boris’s flowery monologues with no-nonsense questioning.

He skewered the PM on the paltry payrise for low-ranking officers: “60 pence a day – the cost of a Mars bar”. He seethed and reddened, threatening to out-puce the iconic red of his namesake race car. “I know we want a thin blue line, but that’s ridiculous.”

The PM was later left spluttering and wriggling when questioned about

Dame Cressida Dick’s future. He repeatedly refused to back the beleaguered Met Police commissioner. Eventually he settled on calling her “formidable”, a compliment which almost guarantees a defenestration.

He reserved the unkindest cut of all for his former Svengali. Was Dominic Cummings right that the new Mrs Johnson was secretly pulling the strings at No10, asked Nick?

“I don’t wish to comment on any of the sayings of my former advisers – who are now many… Just in the last year we’ve had about 220,” Boris replied, demoting Cummings to just one of hundreds of nameless lackeys.

All told, this vaguely competent interview probably counts as smoother progress for the wonky shopping trolley. There were no clear winners, but the losers were clear – Dick and Dom.