His departure became his time in office. Long on bombast, short on content. Long on grandiosity, short on self-awareness. In public and in private, Boris Johnson is a disappointment. Not least to himself. Cut through the fragile narcissism and there is a ball of self-loathing and insecurity. No one understands his own failure better than him. A man of little courage and fewer principles. The lion that keeps forgetting to roar.

Never one to pass up an opportunity to manoeuvre himself into the history books, Boris had chosen almost the identical seat in the Commons to make his resignation speech as Geoffrey Howe had taken for his in 1990. There the comparisons ended.

Howe had been addressing the prime minister in person. Boris was speaking mainly to himself. Theresa May was otherwise engaged with an appearance before the liaison committee, and the government had managed to programme so much pointless prior business that most other MPs had drifted away.

So the chamber was only about a third full for his statement. And, apart from a small handful of Boris Believers that included Nadine Dorries, Ben Bradley and David Davis, most were only there out of idle curiosity. To be there at the end of a career that had promised much but delivered little. Howe’s speech had done for Margaret Thatcher. Boris succeeded only in doing for himself.

He began by thanking the staff of the Foreign Office for all their hard work while he was in charge. The gratitude hadn’t been reciprocated. When Boris had resigned, some in the Foreign Office had broken out the champagne. They were thrilled to be finally rid of the worst foreign secretary in living memory.

He then moved on to the prime minister. Theresa was a marvellous woman. Full of resilience. Absolutely the best woman for the job. If only she were completely different. As so often with Boris, his speech was a model of disingenuousness. He might have imagined it to be oratory, but everyone else could see it for its hollowness. And cowardice. Even when he was questioning May’s authority, he couldn’t bring himself to do so directly.

What followed was a leadership challenge by innuendo. Boris couldn’t even bring himself to take ownership of his own actions. A man for whom opportunism and disloyalty is so innate, he cannot prevent himself from being disloyal to himself. The words flowed easily enough, but they were nearly all empty boasts and idle threats. It was as if the past two years had never happened and he was in euphoric recall for the referendum campaign. The last time he had really felt the public’s love. A time of fantasy when he could believe in miracles and they would come true.

Belief. That’s what he demanded of those around him in the Conservative party. It wasn’t that the prime minister’s Lancaster House speech had run aground on the realities of Brexit. It was that she just hadn’t believed enough in what she was doing. She had got lost “in a fog of self doubt” and her Chequers white paper would submit the UK to the EU’s “vassalage” and leave us in a state of permanent limbo. All-too-familiar yadda. The therapy of mindless mindlessness.

Boris did not stop to explain why he had initially been only too happy to sign up to the Chequers deal and had only resigned after being shamed into doing so by David Davis. Then Boris isn’t much given to introspection. Primarily because there’s almost nothing to see. Strip away the vanity and the ego and there’s a giant void. A black hole of misery that he’s hellbent on inflicting on others.

For 12 minutes Boris bumbled on. Neither making a direct leadership challenge, nor pledging his support. Rubbishing the Chequers deal without giving any sign he had anything better to offer. Just bluster and lies. There were a few reassuring cheers and pats on the shoulder from his handful of friends when he finally limped to the end of his speech, but they were more of sympathy than acclaim. The send-off to an embarrassing relative you hope not to see again.

They had come in search of a saviour lion and found only a paper tiger. If Boris was the answer, they had long since forgotten what the question was. Maybe they really were better off with May after all. A thought that was as terrifying to them as it is to the rest of the country.