If Boris Johnson is to escape from the mess that is the Afghan refugee crisis, he will require, skill, judgement, goodwill and, that commodity in increasingly short supply for the prime minister, luck.

For Johnson, an unfortunate “narrative”, as the spin doctors term it, has been developing. Rightly or wrongly, a succession of crises and fiascos has created an image of serial incompetence, hypocrisy and aimlessness. Electorally, the mixed success in the round of elections in May was tempered by the loss of the parliamentary seat of Chesham and Amersham, and the failure to win Batley and Spen. The much-praised vaccine rollout has been completed, but there’s been no great bounce or bounce back since “freedom day”. Ministers have been distinguished by their poor judgement and worse – Matt Hancock, Gavin Williamson and now Dominic Raab have shown themselves to be not up to the job, which reflects badly on Johnson. Michael Gove has gone quiet, and Rishi Sunak, who’s done well as Johnson has flailed around, faces much tougher times ahead, hiking taxes and cutting spending.