There was a brief frisson of excitement when someone said that Jason McCartney was in the spin room for the ITV leadership debate in Manchester. No one knew the former North Melbourne Aussie rules footballer and current list manager at the Greater Western Sydney Giants was in town. Then the excitement died a little. It was a different Jason McCartney. Jason McCartney, the former Tory MP who lost his seat at the 2017 general election and was now delegated to be cheerleader in chief for Team Boris. Point man to explain to a room full of hacks why his man had won the debate. Even if he hadn’t. Understandably McCartney looked slightly overawed by the responsibility.

Over on the other side of the room rooting for Team Hunt was another former MP, Rob Wilson. Him and me neither. It hadn’t been meant to be like this. The spin room had been billed to be full of ambitious Tory MPs, slavering for top jobs when their man became prime minister. Except it turned out that the Conservative whips hadn’t quite trusted their Labour counterparts to pair their absentee MPs and had ordered them all back to Westminster for the crucial vote on the Dominic Grieve amendment to force parliament to report fortnightly throughout October. Even then it hadn’t been enough as the government was defeated by a single vote. A sign of things to come.

The debate proper began with both men appearing on stage like two contestants in a dodgy 1980s game show. Boris Johnson stared at the floor. A man-boy dressed in an ill-fitting suit. Don’t mess this up, he told himself. All he needed to do was get through the next hour and he would end up as prime minister. “Pifflepafflewifflewaffle,” he babbled. On reflection, taking a large amount of amphetamines just minutes before going on air hadn’t been that good an idea. Jeremy Hunt was in full psycho Colonel Kurtz mode. Eyes fixed and jaw clenched. A cocktail of steroids and napalm was a heady mix. He was the entrepreneur with a plan. The first health secretary to have run the NHS. Into the ground.

That pretty much turned out to be the highlight of the entire show – apart from the ad break – with Johnson choosing to treat proceedings like a third-rate debate at the Oxford Union. “I’ve got a four-point plan,” he shouted. No one had apparently told him he was wearing a microphone. “Well, I’ve got a 10-point plan,” Hunt countered. Boris looked rather put out. The fact that neither plan bore any close examination was neither here nor there.

Colonel Kurtz then went on the offensive. Would Boris resign if he failed to deliver Brexit by 31 October? PIFFFLEPAFFLEWIFFFLEWAFFLE. Was that a yes or no? PIFFLEPAFFLEWIFFLEWAFFLE. We all just needed to believe. In something. Anything. Be optimistic. So long as it included Boris becoming prime minister. When in doubt make a gag. Classic deflection tactics. It was a pitiful object lesson in failing to answer any serious questions. A show of entitled, showman arrogance. In a contest that involved more than 160,000 Tory members, it could have proved fatal. As it was, he could almost say anything. Most of the votes were already in.

“Yes he does,” snarled Kurtz.

“No, he doesn’t,” snapped Johnson.

“Does.”

“Doesn’t.”

Feeble doesn’t begin to do it justice. It would have been more enlightening had both men stripped to their boxers and started arm-wrestling. Giant Haystacks versus Little Daddy. The host Julie Etchingham, who was rapidly emerging as the evening’s runaway winner, let out a primal scream of pain. As she tried to stop the two men squabbling, it gradually dawned on her that one of these men was going to wind up as prime minister. The country really was screwed. We’d be better off picking someone from the audience at random and give them the keys to No 10.

Kurtz did try to get more serious, but each time Johnson merely smirked. Fantasy answers to genuine questions was all he could manage. No one was more relieved than Etchingham when the clock ticked round to the last question. What quality did both men admire in the other? Boris was silent. As a paid-up narcissist he’d never given anyone other than himself a moment’s thought. “Um ... um ...” he’s alive. Hunt merely mocked Johnson’s continued inability to answer questions. He might once have fancied a job in Boris’s cabinet, but now not so much. An hour up close and personal was more than enough.

The closing credits rolled and Boris heaved a sigh of relief. Sure he’d been shit – he’d shown his angry, spiteful, bullying side – but not shit enough to make a difference. The Tory members really were that mad. Just as planned, he’d got away by acting like a guilty 12-year-old caught playing the clown. Over at ITV headquarters, the controller broke down in tears. He had cleared the schedules for this. For this. He should have stuck to Love Island.