It is becoming clearer that whatever happens in Westminster now, it is what happens outside its walls in the inevitable upcoming ballot of the British electorate that will determine the UK’s future: but how voters will respond to the current political chaos is harder to predict

One of the reasons Boris Johnson has got the job of Prime Minister is because he has the knack of telling people, with all apparent sincerity, what it is he thinks they want to hear. This is an enviable skill for an ambitious politician; considerably more rewarding than, for example, Michael Gove’s curiously nerdy ability immediately to specify the precise day of the week for any given date.

Telling people what they want to hear – in an amusing and lucid way – is what gets you on television as a young journalist, elected into Parliament for a safe seat at your first attempt, and chosen by over a million people to be Mayor of London. Twice. It also does wonders for your social life. It is, incidentally, a characteristic that Johnson shares with Jeffrey Archer, who earlier followed a very similar career path in the Conservative Party before it was so precipitately halted by that unfortunate collision with the actualité.

For Johnson, however, everything went just as well as could be – swimmingly, as he would probably put it – until he got the job he wanted. This job. And until now he has never really had to trim his political rhetoric – all those sweeping declarations of apparently amiable intent – to match the expectations of others. This week’s State Opening was a further case in point, when the Prime Minister obliged the poor old Queen to put on her full fig in the middle of a wet Monday morning and ride through the rain to read out a list of legislative aspirations designed solely to encourage the electorate of Johnson’s deservedness to remain Prime Minister at the forthcoming general election. Even the doormen holding the umbrellas knew that she was wasting her time.