It was Carrie Johnson who tipped husband Boris over from defiance into docile acceptance of his fate.
And Mr Johnson’s dad, Stanley, says his son will now console himself over his lost job by turning to painting.
When the PM gathered aides around a vegetarian takeaway of lentil curry and naan bread at 8pm on Wednesday to rebuild his shattered Government he was still determined to cling on.
But as the meeting broke up at 11pm Mr Johnson went up to the flat above No11 he shares with wife Carrie and their children Wilfred, 2, and Romy, seven months.
An insider said: “Boris then talked through his predicament with Carrie who has an astute political brain. She told him she thought the game was up, but they agreed to sleep on it.”
It was the same advice Dennis Thatcher gave to wife Margaret more than 30 years previously in similar circumstances.
A Whitehall source said: “The PM had been angry all day. In a real state of denial and determined to stick in. He kept going on about his personal mandate like a broken record.
“The press team had taken the phones off the hook by mid-afternoon because they said it was unfair for anyone to have to go out and defend him.”
Mr Johnson awoke early on Thursday and by 6.30am his mind was made up and he began working on his resignation speech.
In the next two hours more ministers and aides quit and as the total reached 59 Mr Johnson knew he was making the only choice left open to him.
And today the Nightmare on Downing Street began to descend into farce.
Mr Johnson’s former girlfriend Petronella Wyatt tweeted that No10 sources had told her the PM was about to join the Tory leadership contest. No10 said: “Not true.”
New Education minister and former teacher Andrea Jenkyns defended giving the finger to crowds baying for blood outside Downing Street on Thursday.
She said: “I’m only human.” Then admitted she would not have tolerated that excuse from her pupils.
And we can reveal Boris Johnson has taken his revenge on Michael Gove for sabotaging his 2016 leadership bid by making the sacked Housing Secretary homeless.
The PM has always resented Mr Gove for rubbishing his bid to replace David Cameron which forced him out of the race Theresa May went on to win.
The man in charge of levelling up infuriated the PM on Wednesday by telling the PM to quit and giving him an ultimatum of 9pm to do so.
At 8.58 Mr Johnson called Mr Gove and told the Housing Secretary to eff off and fired him. That not only cost Mr Gove his extra ministerial salary of £67,505 a year leaving him his MP’s pay of £84,144, but also his £25million grace and favour apartment in Westminster’s Carlton Gardens near Buckingham Palace.
Although it is the official residence of Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, she lent her Cabinet colleague the three bed flat in November 2021 after Mr Gove left his family home following the breakup with journalist wife Sarah Vine.
The Housing Secretary also had the run of a ballroom and two dining rooms in the 1830 house designed by architect John Nash and leased by the Foreign Office from the Crown Estates which look after the Queen’s properties.
A friend of Mr Gove confirmed to the Sunday Mirror: “Yes, he will now need to find somewhere else to live.”
The drama over Boris Johnson’s final hours as Tory leader began on Wednesday evening as Cabinet ministers including Home Secretary Priti Patel, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng and Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis filed into No10 to persuade him his time was up.
An insider said: “It was a really tense meeting. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries just sat there shooting daggers at everyone.
“There was only Michael Gove who put it to him that it was over and he had to go. He told BJ that he had until 9pm to make a decision.”
It was the Sunday Mirror which broke the news to Stanley Johnson, 81, as he was boarding a plane for France that his son had decided to quit as Tory leader though not as PM.
Mr Johnson Senior said: “I suspect he will go back to painting. He is a brilliant painter and ten years down the line I would like to see him have a retrospective at the Institute of Contemporary Arts.”
His mother Charlotte Johnson Wahl was an accomplished portrait painter. Actress Joanna Lumley and novelist Jilly Cooper both sat for her and the PM was photographed with his easel while on holiday in Marbella last year.
Had the PM not resigned the 1922 Committee would have changed the rules to hold another no confidence vote. Sir Graham told the PM he would certainly lose it and have to be dragged out kicking and screaming.
Tory whip Craig Whittaker said: “We were offering the PM dignity in dying. The Tory Party is not usually in favour of euthanasia. But we were happy to make an exception in this case.”
A new poll commissioned by rights campaigner Gina Miller shows the damage the PM has done to trust in politics.
Only one in six voters now feel adequately represented by any political party. That rises to nearly six in ten Tory voters and two thirds of Labour ones.
Ms Miller said: “Boris Johnson might finally be on his way out, but his awful legacy is the erosion of trust.
“British politics is at its lowest ebb and needs to be rebuilt.”
