Tom Clark
Boris Johnson’s pre-conference posturing over his “personal vision” for Brexit looked shambling to the country. He preempted the prime minister’s speech in Florence by setting his own criteria for the negotiations in a 4,000-word Telegraph essay, ran into resentment and appeared to back down—before resurfacing on the eve of the Tory get-together in Manchester muttering about red lines again. An understandably annoyed Theresa May declined to be drawn on his future, and Britain saw its foreign secretary exposed as a mopped-topped chancer.