Amber Rudd and Liz Truss arrived together. At just the wrong moment. They looked up in panic to see the photographers were all pointing their cameras elsewhere. Professional politicians to the last, they both stopped dead in their tracks and rummaged in their handbags for some imaginary items. Glancing up to make sure the snappers had now noticed them, the two cabinet ministers started walking forward again. What was the point of turning up to an event like this if your appearance went unrecorded?

Upstairs, the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre was hosting the world’s largest gathering of psychoanalysts for their biennial congress. None of them are going to be short of work in the weeks and months ahead. Indeed, there were several hundred potential patients downstairs for what was more a jobs fair than a Tory party leadership announcement.

Here in the hall every pathology was on view. The smug, the needy, the desperate, the amoral and the deluded. And that was just Boris Johnson. Elsewhere we had Tory MPs pushing one another aside to catch the eye of Gavin Williamson and Grant Shapps, who were revelling in their status as Team Boris fixers-in-chief. “Gizza job, I love Boris, me,” they mewled pathetically. Jo Johnson merely sat chained to his seat in the second row, alongside his father and his sister. A newly converted Brexiter by birth if not by belief.

Others tried to get get in front of any passing TV camera to express their devotion, while brown-noser par excellence John Hayes settled for telling Sajid Javid that ‘the Treasury surely awaits’. Slobber, slobber. Javid might make it to the Treasury a little sooner if Hayes were to remove his head from his arse.

There were some absentees, though. No Theresa May, Philip Hammond, Rory Stewart or David Gauke. All soon to disappear to the backbenches. Spare a thought too for Matt Hancock, a man who has yet to find a principle he won’t betray for the advancement of his own career. He was stuck at health questions trying to explain why the green paper on further reducing the sugar content of drinks had nothing to do with him, even though it had been his idea. Hancock is very much hoping to become the first minister for obesity.

Fifteen minutes later than planned, the lights dimmed and a short video of great Conservative prime ministers was screened. Ted Heath was airbrushed out of history. Which could be the best legacy for which Johnson can hope. Then party chairman Brandon Lewis took to the stage to declare that the leadership contest had shown the very best of the Tory party. Not the strongest sales pitch, given the generally dismal levels of debate between Jeremy Hunt and Johnson. Still, I guess Lewis must have feared it could have been even worse.

When Cheryl Gillan, the acting chair of the 1922 Committee, made the expected declaration that Boris had won, everyone in the front 10 rows stood up and started cheering. And wouldn’t stop. No one wanted to be marked out as the first person to stop cheering and sit down. On and on it went, with every Tory MP glancing sideways, determined to outlast the others. Competitive applause at its most nakedly shameless. Hypocrites all. We’d still be stuck in the hall if Gillan hadn’t finally demanded silence.

“Pifflepafflewifflewaffle,” said Johnson to yet more confected shrieks and giggles. Given that Boris had had six weeks to write his acceptance speech, you might have expected something more than the usual glib, off-the-cuff bollocks. But Johnson is nothing if not predictably slapdash and he appeared to have dashed it off in a couple of minutes in the back of the car on the way to his coronation.

First there was the entirely insincere thanks to Theresa May – Johnson has spent the last three years plotting her downfall – then the usual glib stuff about one nation conservatism and governing for the whole country. The promises that every Tory leader makes when they are elected and are never heard of again.

Johnson then dissolved into campaign patter. People have said the incoming leader has never faced such daunting problems, he declared. But are you daunted? Silence. Boris looked puzzled. He had expected everyone to shout ‘No’. Maybe they weren’t quite as stupid as he had always imagined them to be. “You don’t look daunted to me,” he continued, hesitantly. But they did to everyone else. Some were just beginning to realise they had made a hideous mistake.

Then the race to the end. Pifflepafflewifflewaffle. Brexit would be delivered if only everyone closed their eyes and believed. He was going to put the E into the DUD of Deliver, Unite and Defeat, and Energise something or other. Though not the country. Everyone else was busy stockpiling Prozac and Valium. He concluded by saying he would be working flat out. Or two hours a day, whichever was the longer. His ambition is not matched by his work ethic.

In one way, though, this had been a remarkable Johnson speech. It had been the first one he’d given for years which hadn’t contained any outright lies. Just the odd half-truth. Mainly because he hadn’t actually really said anything. Still there would be plenty of time to rectify that. The lying could restart tomorrow.