Mandy Rhodes: Blushing Boris opens his heart but his vision of Brexit Britain is crazy, stupid love

BORIS JOHNSON chose Valentine’s Day to attempt to win the hearts of Remoaners.

But his lovebomb fell as flat as corked Prosecco.

Like a clumsy suitor he fumbled his lines, tried to joke his way out of trouble and resorted to grubby innuendo. But it was his talk of betrayal that really exposed his pathetic failings as a would-be sweetheart. Because he made it all about Boris.

Why does this overgrown public schoolboy expect us to simply swoon over his gauche attempts at political seduction?

This is a Foreign Secretary who, every time he opens his mouth, reminds us how foreign his kind of diplomacy really is.

This was meant to be a speech that made the positive case for Brexit. The words of reconciliation that would win over the bleeding-heart liberals and pave the way for a smooth goodbye. But it failed. Here was Boris, centre-stage, to persuade the sceptics that he was a man of honour and that his kind of Brexit could be a match made in heaven. Trust me, I have changed, said the wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Instead his speech was vacuous, light in fact and disingenuous in its rewriting of history.

With the clock ticking, it was the first of five speeches from Theresa May’s Government in a “road to Brexit” series meant to unite the country.

Boris began his love letter to the nation with a note on the folly of betrayal. An area in which he has some expertise. He said one thing but meant another.

A global Britain (designed for those who voted for more insularity). An outward Britain (where many say foreigners are not welcome). A prosperous Britain (when all the forecasts say we’ll be poorer). And a Britain separated from Europe by a mere slip of a “moat” (just as the drawbridge is raised).

It was the speech of an ill-suited beau describing a love tryst that exists only in his febrile imagination.

Johnson wrote a Valentine’s card to himself and expected us all to be overcome by his magnificence. But, when you love yourself more than anything else, there is no hope of a meaningful relationship, because it is all about you.

Johnson led on this “conscious uncoupling” and is only now trying to explain what it might mean. And last week’s speech was less whispering sweet nothings, more squashing sour grapes.