Boris Johnson...

Members of the Tory party (124,000 people, average age ‘pensionable’) are about to vote for a man whose vision, as even his friends admit, is unclouded by principles. From his Eton schooldays onward he did whatever was required to ensure his own advancement. This is a man who, before the 2016 referendum, unblushingly wrote two polemical editorials: one supporting membership of the EU, the other recommending what we now call Brexit.

As a journalist he was sacked from The Times newspaper for falsifying quotations, and his regard for the truth doesn’t seem to have increased with the passing of time. Despite having been a disaster in every public role he’s taken on, Boris Johnson seems to assume the right to high office. As I look around the political landscape I’m wondering how we got into this mess, where a man with so few obvious talents, yet filled with self-entitlement, is considered to be the best option we have, as leader of the Tory party and - briefly, I hope - Prime Minister.

Licensed today: signs warning drivers about the road gradient. I haven't driven the Hardknott and Wrynose passes in the Romahome... and I have no plans to try...