Great strategists are unpredictable strategists. So it has been exhilarating to watch Boris Johnson hurl the lightning bolts of shock-and-awe regime change through Britain’s May-grey political skies with such unexpected ruthlessness. Since becoming PM, he has surprised everyone from paranoid Brexiteers to complacent centrists by forming a serious no-deal Cabinet and bellowing for the “abolition” of the backstop from the despatch box.

Of course, such unpredictability is anathema to homo bureaucratus, that snarling, slow-witted behemoth in Brussels that Mr Johnson must take on.