Here’s a valuable lesson for any young politicians watching: if you’re ever tempted to cut corners by lying and making things up, or wish to curry favour with your posh friends by giving them intel on pesky journalists so they can go and settle a score with their Old Etonian fists, just remember that you may one day be Foreign Secretary and be interviewed on the BBC about it.

And when that day comes, all your Latin and your bluster and your books on Churchill will provide little protection.

“You’re a nasty piece of work, aren’t you?” was interviewer Eddie Mair’s summary of the squirming Johnson’s reputation.

Johnson struggles to disagree.