Boris Johnson likes to build bridges. He wasted £53 million trying to construct a floral bridge across the Thames. As foreign secretary, he suggested a 22-mile bridge across the Channel to France. Recently he has championed a bridge between Scotland and Ireland to symbolise the integrity of the Union. None of these bridges have actually been built, of course. They are rhetorical bridges of the optimistic future, bridges for gloomsters who think this great country can no longer build bridges.

The empty optimism of Mr Johnson’s staccato rhetoric obscures the fact that he has settled on the opposite course. He has decided to build no bridges across his party, still less the country. Gather together the Vote Leave team in Downing Street, make cabinet ministers