Even Johnson’s most slavish acolytes admit that it’s his personality rather than his policies that hit the traditional Conservative (and, in the last election, Labour) sweet spot. Ideally, they would use him, not lose him, which is why – drum roll, purlease – I have a cunning plan. (Can someone summon the 1922 Committee – by telegram, perhaps?)

Instead of being in charge of the party, it’s time to put Boris in charge of the parties.

Imagine it, Secretary of State for Bread and Circuses. How fun would that be? And, yes, of course there’d be a zipwire from Smith Square straight into the chamber. And let’s not forget the tiny Peppa Pig trike and so so many Kermit-shaped helium balloons gently bobbing on the sunlit uplands.

It may be a little unconventional, but it’s the sort of creative solution that might just keep him inside. Let’s face it, without Boris, that Red Wall will crumble away quicker than the flaky pastry on a Greggs sausage roll.

As a leader, he’s an ass. As a performer, he’s an asset. Most PMs are the opposite, boring-snoring purveyors of blah-blah infrastructure, due diligence, statutory instruments that you can’t even play.

Enter Boris and the room lights up – even before his bow tie spins and his buttonhole squirts water. A suitcase of booze? Ha ha, vintage Boris. Too dim to grasp that a drunken conga through the No 10 herbaceous border might constitute a breach of lockdown rules? Hilarious.

Every court worth its salt needs a proper jester. Hence Dominic Cummings’ early bath. He quite evidently picked up the wrong mask in the fancy dress shop. Why, a little more bladder-on-a-stick Nonny-No and a lot less Scream slasher ghostface and he might still be in the tent, peeing outwards.

In government as elsewhere, success is predicated on having the right person in the right job. You don’t have to be Lord Sugar to fathom that boosterism and bumptiousness are no substitute for analysis and efficiency.

Big Dulux dog Boris and his red meat fan club (ew, sorry) may believe that stubbornly, ignobly clinging onto power is their only option. Someone needs to tell them sharpish that it isn’t.

Boris is an anomaly. Much too extravagantly eccentric for the rigidly prescribed, serious-verging-on-po-faced role of PM in which he finds himself. He’s a showman, not a strategist; a lover, not a fighter.

So prise off the shackles of fiscal responsibility and let him roam free, talking up the economy, promising jam today, panem et circenses, posing for amiable selfies in flat-roofed pubs, playing for laughs on Have I Got News For You.

Boris is the Tories’ best and breeziest weapon, the biggest gun in the arsenal. Unfortunately, he’s been perilously misdirected.

And unless he’s radically repurposed, there’s a clear and present danger he’ll continue to keep shooting them in the foot, to crippling effect.