Going, but not gone

So Boris Johnson finally read the writing on the wall, and grudgingly agreed to step down as Prime Minister, though not quite yet. He will stay on until a successor has been identified, which may take until October. In the meantime he has promised to run a lame-duck administration, though how exactly that will differ from the current rudderless government isn’t clear.

There is no obvious front-runner in the race to replace Johnson, and the field isn’t exactly inspiring, so it looks like the country will continue to slide into disorder, as various national and international crises pile up. A General Election might provide some respite, but I can’t see any of the potential new PMs being reckless enough to call one, so, as has been the repeated pattern over the last few years, things seem likely to get a lot worse before they get any better.