We need a new lexicon. Seven days ago we were reeling from Westminster’s most momentous week since the end of World War Two. Yet in the last few days, even the handful of certainties that remained after Britain voted to leave the EU have come under the heaviest of fire.

As we wondered just how Britain was going to address the Herculean task of unbuckling ourselves from the EU and of finding a new prime minister, there still seemed to be a few fixed points, at least. The first, following David Cameron’s resignation, was the self-evident truth that only someone who backed Britain’s exit from the EU could lead the Tory Party. No one else would carry conviction in the country, or in Brussels.

Another was that Boris Johnson had overcome Britain’s traditional distaste for personal ambition and was effectively on the threshold of Downing Street. Without his devastating, dramatic switch in February, the Brexit team would not have had the dash and clout necessary to win the prize. Though to some it looked transparently careerist, pundits talked knowingly of Johnson’s star quality with the voters, and Tories love winning elections.

We knew, too - or thought we did - that Michael Gove, more genuinely troubled than Johnson ever was about supporting Brexit and going against David Cameron, had no ambitions to be Prime Minister. He had told us so at least ten times in the last four years. He, surely, was there to add plausibility and intellectual ballast to the difficult questions surrounding free movement of workers, the single market and how to keep Nigel Farage at bay. He would coordinate the supportive laughter next time Boris got stuck on a metaphorical zipwire.