A fascinating week to be in London! At Lords, England was all out for 85 against Ireland, while new temperature records were being set across this once green and pleasant land, even as at Westminister an extraordinary force of nature called Boris Johnson was being unleashed on the British public. How could the same body politic that gave the world the competent but dull John Major and rather anodyne Theresa May also throw up Prime Minister Boris? I have absolutely no clue. On the upside, he is energetic, colourful and endlessly entertaining, making people lean forward to the television, rather than lean back as they did with his predecessor. But can he also solve the intractable problem of Brexit, and come up with a solution that the whole country will get behind, with the blessing of the European Union?

Yes, it's true ... British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Credit:AP.

It simply will not happen. And the problem is not just Johnson’s self-confessed gadabout nature, rushing from thing to thing rather than fierce focus on one thing and getting it right. It is that three years on from a referendum result which, with a tiny margin, set Britain on a course of trying to unscramble a very golden egg and leave the EU, both sides of the debate are more fiercely entrenched than ever to the other side. Half the population – it seems mostly those who truly understand the global economy – looks upon the coming D-Day of leaving the EU on October 31 with dread. And the other half, who just feel it will be a great thing to get away from Europe and the hell with it, can’t wait.

Undecideds? There don’t seem to be any! Everyone I've talked to, from cab drivers to restaurant patrons to sporting fans and passersby at Trafalgar Square, has a very strong opinion, yay or nay, and simply cannot understand the opposing point of view. Where there used to be a stiff upper lip, come what may, there is now sneering disdain for the other point of view.

True, there have been the odd flashes of British humour in the face of adversity, none better than an old image newly doing the rounds on the net of a NO protester holding a placard saying, “This is like when Gerri Halliwell overestimated her ability as a solo artist and left the Spice Girls.” But light moments are a rarity in such a bitter and evenly divided battle.