Good morning. Well, he’s definitely getting the barnacles off the boat. 44 members of the government have resigned in less than 30 hours. Boris Johnson stormed past the previous record for the number of ministerial resignations in a single day with the departure of Mims Davies from the Department for Work and Pensions at 2.26pm; then they, and he, just kept going.
Not content with this unprecedented performance, the prime minister further streamlined operations by firing Michael Gove shortly before the 10 o’clock news, boldly seizing back the initiative by forcing the Levelling Up bill committee to cancel a hearing tomorrow because there were no ministers left to attend it. Gove had committed the cardinal sin of confronting Johnson with reality, and got called a “snake” for his troubles. The last person to resign was health minister Edward Argar, at 10.45pm, and the departures only seem to have paused because everyone’s gone to sleep.
