The stakes are high, and the chips are down. Gamblin’ man Boris Johnson is betting his reputation, his party and your country on one last desperate throw of the dice.
Europe is the playboard. Opposite Boris sits a calm, professional figure, expensively dressed yet understated. Having once held all the cards, the UK team has had to hand them over, one by one, to an opponent who prepared properly and knows how to play the game.
The UK has one player left: Boris Johnson, the maverick who was parachuted in when Theresa May threatened to fold.
He sits there, gibbering quietly, trembling mildly, a single bead of sweat on the forehead under the artfully tousled hair. His shadowy opponent wonders idly if Boris is sufficiently deranged to follow through on his threat to throw his country onto the table
I’m winning, he thinks. I have little to lose. Boris is psyching himself up to risk everything on one roll of the dice. Even if he wins, I’m coming out on top. And if he loses, he’s out of here, knowing he will have ‘the boys’ after him to make him clear his debts.
Johnson is debating whether to put his house on it. Your house. Do or die? Do I dare? Who dares wins? One lucky roll and I’m straight. Lose, and it’s oblivion. The glistening drop of clear liquid slowly rolls down his cheek, as if he were crying over the impossible choice laid before him. One last roll of the dice, or – what?
Walk away from the game, having realised that you have bitten off more than you can chew? Leave the table, poorer but wiser, but with the respect of your opponent for having made a mature choice? Shake hands and say ‘sorry old boy, well played’? Will Boris blink?
It remains to be seen whether Boris has the balls to match his rhetoric, or if he is just all mouth but no trousers.