On Thursday last week Boris Johnson headed home from the Nato summit in Madrid having spent several days in the company of world leaders. At the preceding G7 in Bavaria, speaking loudly enough for the camera to pick up, he had joked: “Can we take our clothes off?” in a supposed riposte to an old shot of Vladimir Putin topless.
At Nato he had at least tried to think long-term, making a public promise to lift defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2030. Yet his premiership ended one week later – by which time the only military comment he would make was to privately compare himself to a Japanese soldier who had refused to surrender for 29 years after the second world war. The joke was remarkably apt.
