Sad, confused, deluded: spare a thought for the friends of Boris Johnson at this difficult time | Marina Hyde

Things may look dark but his acolytes are determined to go down fighting. And, true to type, he is determined to let them

Can I just check something before we begin, because it feels as though we're dealing with a weight of irony that defies all known physics? Is Boris Johnson leaving British politics absolutely howling with anger because someone supposedly told him a lie? Is Boris Johnson wetting his pants thrice daily over the injustice of him being supposedly misled? Is Boris Johnson now appalled at someone else's supposedly casual relationship with the truth? It seems, incredibly, that he is. In which case I honestly don't think I could take this story more seriously. It's too perfect. Boris Johnson has been Boris Johnsonned.

To the event horizon of irony, then, and the ongoing row over whether Rishi Sunak did or didn't tell Johnson he could bend the rules to get peerages for a set of political inadequates completely devoid of ministerial achievements, and notable only for their slavish loyalty to a guy who would have betrayed them in a heartbeat if he thought there was some minuscule, fleeting advantage for himself at that moment. I note there is also some hokey cokey about why Johnson, 58, couldn't get a knighthood for his daddy (genuinely one of the worst people in the country). But let's face it: that one can't even be dignified with discussion.