The amount of ability, intelligence if you will, in the current British government is barely sufficient to boil an egg, far short of what is needed to run a hamster cage.

But, even if it were present, ability does not compensate for lack of a moral compass.  It is more than possible to be a highly intelligent and accomplished, even charismatic, person and at the same time a rotter, an all round bad egg. The late Robert Maxwell provides a good example: to progress from a poverty stricken Czech village to running a major publishing empire, speaking – as mother tongue – several European languages, and with an MC, and  a former ambassador as general factotum was no mean achievement. But despite all this he was no good; he could not be trusted.

Now to pass to other matters, la famille Johnson…