Boris Johnson's love-bomb fell as flat as a corked prosecco

Boris Johnstone chose Valentine’s Day to attempt to win the hearts of Remoaners to his Brexit cause. But his love-bomb fell as flat as a corked prosecco.

Like a clumsy suitor he fumbled his lines, tried to joke his way out of trouble and resorted to grubby sexual innuendo in a feeble attempt to impress.

But in the end, it was his talk of betrayal that really exposed his pathetic failings as a would-be sweetheart. Because he made it all about him.

Poor misunderstood Boris. Even his friends and family believe they have been betrayed and he still doesn’t understand why.

What is it about this overgrown public school-boy that thinks it is ok to engage in a public love affair with himself and expect the rest of us to simply swoon over his gauche attempts at political seduction?

This is a Foreign Secretary who every time he opens his mouth reminds us of how foreign his kind of diplomacy really is.

This was meant to be a speech that made the positive case for Brexit. The words of reconciliation that would win over the bleeding-heart liberals and pave the way for a smooth ‘goodbye’. But it failed.

He joked about sex tourism, made a cheap shot at dogging and cracked on about the continued availability of “cheapo flights to stag dos” just as police search for a Scot who went missing on a stag night in Germany. The man is a fool.

But here he was, pushed once again, centre stage, to persuade the sceptics that he had not lied, that he was a man of honour and that his kind of Brexit could be a match made in heaven.

Trust me, I have changed, said the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

His speech was vacuous, light in fact and disingenuous in its rewriting of history.

But with the Brexit clock ticking, Johnson’s was the first of five speeches that Theresa May’s government will make in a “road to Brexit” series meant to unite the country.

Sweating profusely, he began his love letter to the nation with a note on the folly of betrayal. An area in which he has some expertise.

He says one thing but means another. A global Britain (designed for Britons that voted for more insularity). An outward Britain (where many say foreigners are not welcome). A prosperous Britain (when all the forecasts say we’ll be poorer). And a Britain separated from Europe by a mere slip of a “moat” (just as the drawbridge is raised]).

It was the speech of an ill-suited beau who described a love tryst that exists only in his febrile imagination.

Johnson wrote a Valentine’s card to himself and expected us all to be overcome by his magnificence. But the fact is, when you love yourself more than anything else, there is no room for compromise, no understanding of another’s point of view and no hope of a meaningful relationship, because it is all about you.

Johnson led on this ‘conscious uncoupling’ and is only now trying to explain what it might mean. And last week’s Valentine’s Day speech was less whispering sweet nothings and more squashing sour grapes.

First published in the Sunday Post on 18 February