On the plus side, Boris Johnson could always pretend the interview never took place. He wasn’t there, he had never said anything. After all, Dominic Cummings had got away with denying he had ever said Brexit would be a walk in the park the morning after he had been recorded saying it. This was the Art of War. And what worked for Dom Tzu could work for the Incredible Sulk.

The interview that never took place was the prime minister’s scene-setter for the Tory party conference on The Andrew Marr Show. But it’s fair to say that if it had taken place, no one would have marked it up as a triumph. Even when he is trying to be bullish, he invariably ends up looking shifty. But then he has got a lot to be shifty about. Towards the close of an uncomfortable 30 minutes, the Sulk’s eyes did their best to avoid the cameras. His eyes are his last vestige of a conscience.

“Surrender, surrender, surrender,” Johnson had insisted, when asked if he would apologise for his use of language in regard to death threats to women MPs. Sulk not sorry. Sulk never said “Humbug”. “Surrender, surrender, surrender.” What exactly did he mean by “Get Brexit Done”? A 12-year-old could tell you that signing a withdrawal agreement was only the prelude to years of ongoing Brexit negotiations. “Surrender, surrender, surrender.”

Marr tried a new game. How about the Sulk stopped saying surrender and seeing instead if he could get through the rest of the interview without telling any lies? He could not. The Tories were such a broad church that the party had had to sack 21 of its MPs for being too narrow. Six partial refurbishments were the equivalent to building 40 new hospitals. Besides, there was no point building hospitals when there were no doctors or nurses to work in them. Skeleton staff for hospitals full of skeletons.

OK, Marr said. He would make a deal with Johnson. He wouldn’t bring up the allegations of groping two women at the same time and having an affair with Jennifer Arcuri. Hell, it was probably now harder to find a woman in London he hadn’t groped than one he had. But he did want to ask if he had failed to declare an interest when he had taken Arcuri on various jaunts and awarded her failed startup thousands of pounds of public money in exchange for a few lessons in how to delete his internet browsing history. “There was no interest to declare,” the Sulk said, sullenly. She was too boring. Hardly the most gracious way to describe an ex.

“I’ve been a model of restraint,” he continued. And in his way, he had. Because he had got through the entire interview without once putting his hand on Marr’s thigh or trying to get him into bed. That was the sign of a real leader. He was still mumbling “surrender, surrender, surrender” as he was finally led away in a straitjacket from the studio that had never existed.

It was only just dawning on the Tory leadership that the opposition parties had been trying to do them a favour by voting against the recess and getting them to cancel their conference. Man-Boy Matt Hancock, now thoroughly in the grip of Stockholm syndrome, had got things off to a bad start by claiming that as the Sulk had never criticised anyone for groping, then it was unfair to bring up his own historical gropes. What went on between two unconsenting adults in the privacy of a public dinner was their own business.

Next up was a three-way discussion between Alok Sharma, Ben Wallace and Liz Truss – three ministers fighting over a single IQ point – which was basically an invitation for everyone to pack up and go home before they died of boredom. The highlight was Wallace insisting that just because people couldn’t see submarines, it didn’t mean they didn’t exist – no shit – and that the only makeup soldiers would be wearing was camouflage. No room for girly-boys in Wallace’s army.

Dominic Raab got a smattering of applause. More out of fear than anything else. The more engaging and ingratiating he tries to be, the more tense and awkward he appears. Waiting for those bodies in the Thames to be identified is doing his head in. Psycho Killer. Qu’est-ce que c’est? The Brexit session with Michael Gove, Steve Barclay and Jacob Rees-Mogg was almost entirely content free. Surrender, surrender, surrender. Get Brexit done. Gove appealed for trust, testing even the diehards’ level of irony. Barclay was so dull he didn’t even notice that he had come to the end of his speech. The only person to raise a pulse was Rees-Mogg who ran through several of some of Nanny’s favourite rhymes. It’s a Tory thang.

The day ended with Johnson denying he had ever groped the journalist Charlotte Edwardes. He might have groped the other woman, whoever she was, but he probably definitely hadn’t groped Edwardes. Not that he would have remembered. Besides, much like the Marr show and the conference, no one could be sure that Edwardes had ever really existed. Classic Dom.