Political column - June 17

His destination, the gutter – that is, a return to journalism – and perhaps a sojourn in the showbiz world as he hasn't presented Have I Got News for You for a while, and of course a few tours on the lucrative public speaking circuit.

How about writing his memoirs, too?

Boris Johnson is now in a place that no normal politician could ever come back from. In saying that, though, we always have to remember that like Donald Trump, he is not, and never has been, a normal politician.

It's a wonder that he got into Westminster in the first place. With a few exceptions, not even Conservative MPs liked him much.

If you're looking for somebody to blame, blame the voters who put him there and kept him there.

Boris Johnson defies gravity. He defies convention. He defies... well, almost everything.

What has been apparent throughout his life, even before he entered politics, is that the normal rules do not apply to him.

He has been banished to the wilderness. A politician, a Prime Minister no less, who lied and deliberately misled. We need to have absolute trust in our politicians, say the politicians.

The privileges committee report is damning, although I'm not pretending that I've read every one of its 30,000 words.

Having committed a serious contempt, it says, the former Prime Minister has gone on to commit a further contempt by describing the committee itself as a kangaroo court.

You get the feeling that the members were somewhat browned off by that.

Boris Johnson being Boris Johnson, one way or the other we have not heard the last of him.

One party may be over, but don't be surprised if there are more parties to come.

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Roger's user IQ. (5, 7)

The best I can do I'm afraid, and I had to use one of those internet anagram machines even then.

But let me pay tribute to the late Roger Squires of Ironbridge, best known of course for his crossword compiling feats, but a man of many talents as I discovered when I once popped round and he showed me his scrapbook.

He was a showbiz all rounder – magician, actor, playwright, comedian – and included in the fascinating memorabilia and cuttings were many of his jokes. At the time I was tasked with doing a "joke of the day" for the paper, which was in itself a joke as I could never remember any, and he kindly helped out by giving permission for me to draw on his stock (or perhaps that should be laughing stock).

So, as Roger was an entertainer who made people smile, let me celebrate his life by reprising a few of them, although if you have no experience of the humour of the 1960s and 1970s you'd better turn the page now.

“Doctor, doctor, please help me – every time someone comes in our yard I bark like a dog.” Doctor: “How long have you had this problem?” Patient: “Ever since I was a puppy.”

“This year I’ve bought my wife a watch for Christmas. Next year I’ll give her the works.”

“I went to a pub and a man at the bar with a pint said ‘It’s my 21st. Are you going to buy me a drink?’ When I did, he lifted it up and said: ‘That’s my 22nd’.”

A cyclist runs over a pedestrian. As the pedestrian brushes himself down, the cyclist says: “You’re lucky, mate.” “What do you mean, lucky?” “Normally I drive a lorry.”

I bought my mother-in-law a chair for her birthday. But she won’t plug it in.

A man visiting an asylum found the inmates chopping wood in a huge barn. Suddenly one of them threw down his axe, climbed up the wall, and hung from the ceiling by his feet.

“What’s up with him?” asked the visitor. “Oh, he often does that,” said the supervisor. “The thinks he’s a chandelier.”

“Can’t you get him to come down?” asked the visitor. “Don’t be a fool,” said the supervisor. “How do you expect the rest of us to chop wood in the dark?”