Johnson's dreams of a comeback will be a nightmare for Liz Truss

Making his final appearance in the Commons as prime minister, Boris Johnson tendered some advice to his successor. Don’t break the laws that you yourself introduced to curb a deadly pandemic.

- Andrew Rawnsley

Don’t lie to parliament. Don’t reduce government to a trashy carnival of incompetence, sleaze and mendacity. He also offered this tip: “Focus on the road ahead, but always remember to check the rear-view mirror.”

That was sound advice. The rear-view mirror of the next prime minister will be filled with an attention-craving, angry, bitter and menacing presence. Mr Johnson himself will be breathing down her neck. We know from every unrepentant word he has uttered since Tory MPs acted to evict him that he burns with vengeful resentment. We know he sees himself not as the architect of his own downfall, but as the victim of ungrateful rats.

Having dreamt of a decade at No 10, he has ended up as a three-year prime minister, which is hard for his monstrous ego to endure because it is only half as long as David Cameron, his rival since they were denizens of the Bullingdon Club. “Hasta la vista, baby,” he signed off from the dispatch box, an unsubtle signal that he thinks he could contrive a Berlusconi-like return to power.

He will be encouraged by the thought that he has been written off many times before, only to stage comebacks everyone else thought impossible. The quest may well be a fantasy, but his pursuit of it will fascinate his party and the media in a way bound to distract and destabilise his successor. A man whose only loyalty is to himself will not care a jot about that.