For the Conservative party’s Manchester conference, the slogan was “Get Brexit done”. Yet again, Boris Johnson swears blind he’s going to withdraw on schedule. A promise an unspecified number of single mothers have heard before.

Unfortunately, this conference contained adult themes from the outset. Welcome to the errordome, where by day three it had been established that a table seating plan constitutes sexual consent; where the 1922 Committee treasurer had been sent home for an altercation with security staff right before the home secretary’s speech on law and order; and where Dominic Cummings was still apparating in unexpected places wearing the same grey tracksuit. He’s not so much an eminence grise as a tracksuit grise. Cummings now edits at least three of this country’s newspapers, and had to leave the conference bar to escape all the young Tory dudes who wanted selfies with him. You’ve heard of crisis-of-masculinity podcasts? You live in one.

Instead of “Get Brexit done”, the Tories should really have co-opted the deathless title of that Succession episode Shit Show at the Fuck Factory. Those words would have been a way more appropriate backdrop to the spectacle of various cabinet ministers squirming over whether the PM groping the upper inner thigh of a woman would be one of their personal red lines. Pressed on the Charlotte Edwardes claims, Matt Hancock blathered that he did have red lines that would force his cabinet resignation, but he wasn’t going to say them out loud. Oh, Matt. Is one of them “blowing a customs official to secure the release of the Fyre festival’s Evian water”? Because, you know … convince me you wouldn’t. Hancock went on to imply that unwanted touching of women was OK because Johnson has “never lectured other people on their private lives”. Yup, shit show at the fuck factory.

Still, here he comes, Sex Wonka, raising hopes and denying gropes. Boris Johnson’s most amusing viral moment from Manchester featured one aide passing him a cup, only for another aide to snatch it back with the hissed words: “No. Disposable. Cups.” I suppose it’s very remotely possible this is something to do with “the environment”, though the cup didn’t even get a single use. But surely the more likely theory is that the prime minister never uses a hairbrush or drinks out of disposable cups because he daren’t risk a DNA test.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tracksuit grise … Dominic Cummings. Photograph: James Veysey/REX/Shutterstock

One of the No 10 aides in question was Rob Oxley, a chap whose other eyecatching move at the conference was to enter the press room on Sunday evening with an imperious: “One from each, one from each.” Once one reporter from each paper had been martialled, Oxley told them the Edwardes allegations were untrue. No questions permitted. Had he been under the dinner table in question at the time? Inquiring minds want to know.

Britain is now basically governed by a Jeremy Kyle villain who knows the ancient Greek for humbug. Boris Johnson’s own foreword to the conference programme declared that he felt, in Manchester, “the same throb of possibility every time I visit”. As you’d expect from someone whose personal philosophy is “no throb unyielded to”. Beyond the security cordon in the real country – all those wonderful people out there in the dark – Johnson’s latest polling puts him on a minus 18 approval rating. He’s as popular as ebola on a chemo ward – and yet, he is still 42 (FORTY-TWO) points ahead of Jeremy Corbyn.

Having not seen a policy since three Christmases ago, the Tories now hallucinate five before breakfast. To kick off conference, Johnson announced he would be building 40 new hospitals. (With what? Playmobil? Wine crates? We didn’t hear; the figure later seems to have been commuted to six.) Andrew Bridgen literally proposed a monorail. Also being promised was limitless cheap nuclear energy within 20 years. This really is fully automated luxury WTFery. I’m amazed they didn’t float mining the asteroid belt. Maybe during the election.

And so to the programme of events. Given where we are with Brexit, never has the usual portentous timetable looked more absurd. You could attend endless panels with titles such as “AI: Could we? Should we?” or “The future of capitalism”. JUST TELL US WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN IN FOUR WEEKS, YOU MAD BASTARDS. Johnson and Cummings’ commitment to a no-spoilers Brexit is so total that they haven’t even told Jacob Rees-Mogg or Arlene Foster their plan. But don’t worry. As John Redwood put it: “It will work because we’ve got some technology.”

But what technology? The Conservatives couldn’t even update their conference app. Throughout the four days, it still showed a welter of what we might call ghost ship events, such as a big Q&A with Rory Stewart, who was not in Manchester on account of not being in the Conservative party any more. Guys, you know if it’s digital, you can update it at any time, yes? Maybe it’s because the prime minister thinks “technology lessons” involve dancing poles. So they did try to change the app, but thought the way you did that was by twirling seductively into an inverted splits hold, while tossing your hair to Donna Summer’s She Works Hard for the Money.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Feeling the strain … Johnson. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

You could learn a lot from freeze-framing the conference at exactly the same point a year apart. On the Tuesday morning last year, prime minister Theresa May was asked in a radio interview about the manner in which Boris Johnson had stolen all her conference headlines. She replied: “I’m concentrating on what is important, which is getting a good deal for the UK.” On the Tuesday morning this year, prime minister Boris Johnson was asked in a radio interview about Edwardes’ headline account of his grope. He replied: “I think what the public want to hear is about what we are doing to level up and unite the country.” I wonder where we’ll be in 2020. Maybe cabinet minister Nigel Farage will deflect from the emergence of his financial ties to the Russian government’s covert sex robot building programme with the words: “I am focused on what people want, which is delivering our domestic agenda.”

Like all his other urges, the PM can’t suppress his irritation at even being asked about such things. How can this still be happening to him, now he is king of the gods? I do feel Johnson has been historically hampered by his inability to conduct assignations with mortal women by disguising himself as a swan, say, or a shower of gold. He has only ever taken the form of Boris Johnson. That said, there is an enchanting picture of Jennifer Arcuri – the grant-receiving model/tech entrepreneur in whose pole-dancing-equipped flat Johnson is reported to have had afternoon technology lessons – in which Arcuri is shown looming over a London mayor-themed cake. In an image that might be captioned Attack of the 50 Foot Infosec Woman, Jennifer is gleefully biting the head of one of three fondant Boris Johnsons to adorn it. Did Zeus ever appear as an icing figurine? I must look it up before Priti Patel announces a book-burning initiative.

In general, the hall reaction to speakers was muted. This is a revenue-gathering sort of gathering. In recent years, the dwindling band of elderly activists has been gradually replaced by an army of lobbyists for one form of Big Shittery or another. Even cabinet emoji Liz Truss could barely raise a laugh, while Patel should slap a whole life tariff on Northern Powerhouse minister Jake Berry for the following: “The only homes we are not going to build in the north of England is Sherlock Holmes!” Jake, you can’t even build a joke. It feels incredibly unlikely that you’re going to be up to renewing the north.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Priti Patel. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Even Johnson didn’t really do the business, and they missed yet another trick not making his entrance music Shaggy’s It Wasn’t Me. Declaiming welcome lies about having cleared up Britain’s debt, and eyebrow-raisers like “the cocaine habits of the bourgeoisie”, the prime minister looks like a man who answered a casting call searching for “a Gary Busey type”. He still dresses like someone who was last night banished to sleep in the car. Having said that, what was once a careless affectation increasingly begins to look essential. Not having a stylish uniform is one of the crucial bulwarks between Boris Johnson and a number of unfortunate historical #inspo associations.

It’s not just the use of terms like “surrender act”, which have to be said 437 times every day. This was a conference at which you could also repeatedly hear that parliament was illegitimate, the Benn Act was constitutionally illegitimate, and that the government could and should, in the words of one Brexiter, “subvert it by any means necessary”.

On the fringe, panel composition tended toward the Sartrean. One completely packed event by the Bruges Group, held at Manchester’s Comedy Store – leave it, it’s not worth it – featured John Redwood, Mark Francois and Arlene Foster. All killers, no fillers. I’m kidding, of course. There was actually a fourth panellist, in the form of a Brexit QC. But the main draw was Francois, who now gets the sort of reception you might expect Galatasaray fans to give Sergio Ramos if he signed for them. “I’ve got a feeling one or two of you might have heard Mark Francois speak before,” trilled the chair, who went on to say that Mark “has used his experience in the territorial army and his MA in war studies to great effect”. A reminder that the definition of politics as the art of the possible is no substitute for wriggling through Epping Forest on your tummy dreaming of Rommel every second weekend.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Getting territorial … Mark Francois. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters

In fact, put like that it’s incredible that we STILL haven’t Brexited, until you remember that Mark has voted a full three times, and at every time of asking, not to leave the EU. Once he’d announced his forthcoming book - it will be called You Couldn’t Make It Up, a title previously used by both Jeremy Kyle and Richard Littlejohn – Mark’s Bruges Group headline appearance concluded with a stark warning to parliamentarians. “Ask not for whom the bell tolls,” ran this thundering salvo. “It tolls for them.”

“He’s amazing, isn’t he?” sighed the woman in the row behind me. I would estimate that at the Bruges Group, a scientific 83% of the women in the audience own cooking aprons printed with the torso of a French maid, would regard Boris Johnson disturbing their cobwebs as “a bit of fun”, and estimate there are between three and four units in an entire wine box. All of the above is the fault of 100% of the men at said event. “I’ve actually discovered we would have more sovereignty as a province of Canada,” one stood up to drone. “Could we apply to be a province of Canada?” Do run along and have a crack, sir. I’ll time you.

Other personal lowlights? Watching someone who used to be David Cameron’s adviser defending a Johnson grope. Over to this Alex Deane, who told Sky News: “As the late Alan Clark said: ‘How do I know my advances are unwanted until I have made them?’” So glad we’re ceding control of our boundaries to a deceased man, born in 1928, who named his dogs after Hitler and Leni Riefenstahl. Listen up, girls: you are getting a full house in crap sex bingo if Alex goes straight for your inner thigh, at the same time as honking: “And THEN he said that Michael Heseltine had to buy his own furniture! Yes! Absolute legend!”

As it so happened, Alex woke up the next morning and tweeted his regret at having raised Clark’s point: “It doesn’t reflect my views, as anyone who knows me will know.” Righto. Even so, one of my very strongest impressions from Manchester was that variations of the phrase “This is not the man I am” will be used less and less. The Tory MP Sir Desmond Swayne has just got five unapologetic days of publicity out of wearing blackface. First came his column defending Justin Trudeau for doing it, and revealing he himself had worn blackface and would again. Next came the emergence of the pictures in question, at which Desmond took another bite of the apple and again refused to apologise. Meanwhile, outside of Johnson’s speech, the biggest reaction I heard during entire conference was at the Bruges Group event, when a reporter asked the two MPs how they felt about Johnson saying Jo Cox would want Brexit to get done. People were actually baying at the journalist in support of Johnson. With the Charlotte Edwardes disclosure, a quick HazMat dive into social media will confirm that far from giving Johnson’s base pause, it positively energised them.

Releasing new polling on Monday, Michael Ashcroft’s summary of his research over the past few weeks was that those making the comparison between Johnson and Donald Trump “were increasingly likely to mean it in a good way”. Or as one of the PM’s biggest fans, Katie Hopkins, put it: “Better to be grabbed by the pussy than have a pussy as prime minister.” A real banquet of options, there.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Drowning in his own suit … Jacob Rees-Mogg. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

Everywhere, Tories seemed to be trying out their new ironicidal style. Rees-Mogg, who still hasn’t noticed his own tailor is trying to drown him, declared: “But as I grew up in the British establishment, I know how awful it is. I see its faults perhaps more clearly than most do, and its determination, its anti-democratic wish to cling to its power come what may.” I am afraid the phrase “Do me a favour” is simply not up to the task of addressing that. See also John Redwood’s claim that: “As good democrats we accepted the [EU referendum] result in 1975 and got on with making the best of it.”

Language is becoming unmoored from reality. An event called Challenging “Islamophobia” (scare quotes: Tories’ own) turned out to be primarily concerned with ensuring the term wasn’t used at all. The Taxpayers’ Alliance ran two panels called “Is the state killing free speech?” and “Am I allowed to say that?”, featuring people who earn six-figure sums for saying whatever they like on prominent media platforms. Meanwhile, following an increasingly representative statement from Daniel Hannan, positively frothing with terms like “junta” and “coup”, the eminent war historian Lawrence Freedman tweeted a reply: “Words like ‘coup’ and ‘junta’ have specific meanings. The Greeks were ruled by a real military junta from 1967 to 1974. These words have no meaning in situations where you just don’t like what an elected parliament is doing.”

After these four days in Manchester, it’s difficult to escape the impression that this kind of rationality is going rapidly out of fashion. We are firmly through the looking glass now, and the prime minister is playing ever more dangerously with the political matches. That IS the man he is. It DOES reflect the person those who know him would recognise. And a lot of people currently love him very much for it. Floreat shitbird.