Johnson can now deliver a ‘Brexit in name only’. Will he?

If the PM were the one nation Tory he claims to be, he would - and should - choose to keep Britain aligned with the EU

I have occasionally referred over the years to a parody of an editorial which a group of us at the Financial Times once concocted on a slow news day. It began something like this: "While in many ways we were against the Marxist manifesto on which the opposition campaigned, now that they have been elected the important thing is to make their programme work."

Well, there has been no danger of any newspaper having to welcome a Corbyn government in such tones. However, an up-to-date version of that editorial might read as follows: "While we thought, and still think, that the new government's plan to leave the European Union is bordering on the insane, the important thing now is to make it work."

Let us hope the optimists are right, and that Johnson has moved on from wanting to prorogue parliament in order to crash out