Boris Johnson is not a politician who does things by halves but even by his standards, the political bombshell he detonated was about as explosive as it could be.

The consensus seems to be that he has walked before he was pushed and that he calculated that it would be better to quit on his terms rather than someone else’s.

The attempt to blame everyone else - or anyone else - is classic Boris strategy: when he stood down as Prime Minister, his resignation statement did not contain the word ‘resign’ and alluded instead to a herd of animals pushing him in a direction he did not want to go in.

The two words in this resignation statement that are most telling are the ones that indicate that he is not leaving politics permanently but has decided ‘for now’ that it is best to do so.

And of course, the calculation he has made is what is best for him rather than what is best for the party, the government and the country.

His attempt to take the political initiative away from the findings of the cross-party committee investigating claims he misled Parliament was always a possibility. But characteristically, he looks like the boy who takes his football away because his team isn’t winning.

He has always divided opinion in Kent; his dogged persistence in campaigning for a Thames Estuary airport - dubbed ‘Boris Island’ - did not go down well, to say the least.

He eventually dropped the unpopular idea, co-incidentally at the time he was contesting the party leadership race with Jeremy Hunt.

When contenders for the job caused by his resignation took part in a TV hustings and were asked if they thought he was an honest politician, the Tonbridge and Malling MP Tom Tugendhat was the only one to be unequivocal - shaking his head to indicate he did not.

There is no doubt, on the other hand, that his populist instincts go down well with voters. In the election of 2019 that was dominated by his promise to ‘get Brexit done’ he delivered in the process huge majorities to some of the county’s MPs.

But he is not every MP’s cup of tea: Thanet North MP Sir Roger Gale, a long-standing critic, is alarmed by the idea that Boris might make a comeback and has previously threatened to resign the party whip if he was to be restored as PM.

Who knows what comes next? We are in uncharted territory - other than a by-election, even the man himself doesn’t appear to know.

Which is small consolation for the current PM, who has just about steadied the Conservative ship but now has to find a way to navigate some distinctly choppy political waters.