Superstitious folk say bad luck comes in threes.
Britain’s misfortune is to suffer history’s worst hat-trick of Prime Ministers: chronically incompetent Boris Johnson after inept David Cameron and woeful Theresa May.
The 20th Century was dotted with dire Prime Ministerial flops, failures such as Neville Chamberlain and Alec Douglas-Home, yet never three in a row as poor as this modern Tory trio.
Delve back into 19th and the Earls of Derby and Aberdeen were successive mediocrities but they were bookended by more able Lords John Russell and Palmerston.
Labour losing to enable this to happen is also a frightening indictment of the opposition.
Their 13 years in power – Tony Blair and Gordon Brown occupying Downing Street – are vanishing in politics’ rear view mirror.
The fate of Britain, however, goes from bad to worse as a lazy, cynical liar demonstrates daily he’s inferior to lacklustre May or a humiliated Cameron, who lost Europe in his crazy referendum gamble. Doing press-ups is no substitute for the heavy lifting and sound judgment required to revive a nation reeling from the world’s highest excess deaths and potentially heaviest economic hit during Johnson’s virus misrule.
Tomorrow’s gimmicky “Project Speed” selection of cliches in the Midlands is a future constructed on shifting sands rather than built on the solid foundations demanded by Labour oppo Keir Starmer.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak is privately itching to return to self-defeating Tory tax rises, while Johnson’s spending claims are from an election lie book that saw six new hospitals dishonestly exaggerated to 40.
The decision to axe Labour’s ambitious schools rebuilding programme hailing 50 “new projects” shows the poverty of Tory ambition in a nation with more than 20,000 schools, a growing number requiring more than a fresh lick of paint.
Johnson is ousting Sir Humphrey to replace him with a presumably tamer lackey, while simultaneously defending a condemned Housing Secretary losing support among even his own MPs over the London cash-for-favours scandal with Tory donor Richard Desmond.
It’s because the PM is plotting to tighten his grip on the civil service machine he yearns to operate as an extension of the Conservative Party.
No world-beating virus testing or app but global hot-air from Johnson, a leader with no intention of walking the “levelling-up” talk.
Recent history teaches us that instantly disbelieving Johnson saves later disappointment.
