I seem to be living through very strange times here. The Brexit referendum vote seems to have unleashed all sorts of crazy things. The latest is the shocking announcement by Boris Johnson that he would not be seeking to become Prime Minister. On the other hand, when I was watching the England vs Iceland footy game, the English fans told me that they could never be confident, even against a little country like Iceland, because England has a history of losing such games. Similarly, history has taught that the frontrunners for the Conservative leadership never win. So maybe the Boris thing should not be a surprise.

“Et tu Michael? Then die Boris!”: Michael Gove used to be known as Cameron’s Brain. He is smart guy and was the equivalent of Cameron’s Attorney General and one of the leaders of the Leave campaign. Until today, it was assumed that he would become Boris’ Brain, as he had announced his support for Boris and was seen as his campaign manager. Then yesterday, an e-mail from his wife (a Daily Mirror correspondent) was leaked by Sky News (all owned by Murdoch). She advised him to get solid commitments from Boris before supporting him and said that Boris had no credibility with Murdoch or anyone else without Gove. Then, first thing this morning, Gove announced that he was withdrawing his support for Boris and was going to run himself (thereby stabbing Boris in the back before Boris could do it to him?), saying that Boris “was not up to the challenge”. Pretty cold, huh? Boris counted votes and concluded that he was dead and announced that he would no longer run. The weird thing was that Boris gave what sounded like his speech announcing his candidacy, only changing the punchline at the very end.

So Now What for the Conservatives?: There are five candidates. Two must be chosen by the other Conservative MPs and the two in the lead are probably Theresa May (who was a lukewarm Remain supporter) and Michael Gove. Especially compared to Boris, these two are so lacking in charisma that they make Cameron (who had all the charisma of a ham sandwich) look like Michael Jackson. But who knows what will happen next.We do know that eventually two candidates will be chosen and there will be a vote among the Conservative members, who are mostly old, mostly male and who total only 130-150,000. It is absurd that the next Prime Minister would be selected by such a group, so one would think that a snap election has to happen sometime this year or early next year. But, again, the way things are going, it is hard to make any sort of prediction.

Meantime, in the Labour Party: Jeremy Corbyn seems to believe that he has the support of the rank and file of the party, a large number of whom his supporters signed up last year. He may be right, although he has been so ineffective (if well-meaning) that one wonders if even the true believers on the left are losing faith. Corbyn does not seem to be inclined to leave, even though he has pathetically little support from his Parliamentary colleagues and he can barely form a Shadow Cabinet. He and his supporters take the position that the recent vote of no confidence was illegal, although it was so overwhelming that it is hard to ignore. Since Corbyn won’t take the hint, someone is going to have to challenge him formally. If it gets down to a vote, there will probably be a big influx of new voters, adding to the roughly 400,000 members currently on the books. If Corbyn does not resign, there is a very real chance that the Labour Party will split in two and other parties will pick up the pieces. It is really hard to see how this all doesn’t end up as a disaster for Labor in the next election.

In Question Time yesterday, Cameron said something like “I know that it is in my Party’s interest that you remain as leader, but, my God man, it’s time for you to go”. I doubt that Corbyn will take such advice from someone he hates.

Quite a mess!