LIKE the Prime Minister to whom he was referring, the American broadcaster Edward R Murrow could turn a phrase the way a diamond cutter shapes a precious stone. Writing about Churchill’s speeches in 1940, the CBS man wrote: “Now the hour had come for him to mobilize the English language, and send it into battle, a spearhead of hope for Britain and the world.”

In his speech to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester yesterday, his first as leader and Prime Minister, Boris Johnson mobilised the English language like a panicked parent rounding up a gang of children already late for school. This idea had one shoe on, another was missing a gym kit, that one … who did that child belong to anyway, the one named “NHS”? Mr Johnson claimed it for his own. “We are the party of the NHS,” he declared. Meanwhile, back in London, filling in for the boss at PMQs, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab was quoting Martin Luther King.

In the words of the lead character in the new movie Joker, “Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?”

Every party conference seems to take place in a bubble. They are holidays for political anoraks, where delegates are handed a wristband/lanyard on the way in and a packed schedule of activities to choose from. Reality, cold, harsh reality, can wait till the holiday is over.

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Mr Johnson’s speech sounded even more detached from the pressures of here and now than his contributions usually do. The speech had been talked up beforehand as offering the first real glimpse of his Government’s new proposals for a Withdrawal Agreement. Hardly. It was as short on detail as it was possible to be on that front. In reality, his Manchester speech had three other functions.

First, it was a chance to try out lines of attack in a General Election campaign. One passage that went down well in the hall was his raising the prospect of two more referendums should Labour win power: the first on a Corbyn Government-negotiated EU withdrawal agreement, the other a Scottish independence referendum. Both would lead to “chaos and cacophony”, he threatened. This was not the first time Mr Johnson has attempted to lump Mr Corbyn’s Labour with the SNP and it will not be the last. That he should be airing it on a UK-wide stage suggests it has passed the test of polling. “Can you imagine,” said Mr Johnson, “another 3 years of this?” One can certainly imagine that line on an election poster, superimposed over the snarly-faces of actors playing Remain v Leave, Yes v No.

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The second aim of the speech, linked to the first, was to reintroduce the voters to what we are told by his friends is the Johnson of old. Gone was Boris the Commons bully, dismissing concerns about violent language as “humbug”. Nowhere to be seen was the petulant bruiser who stripped 21 of his own MPs of the whip. This was a return to the Boris of his London mayor days, when not a lot was expected of him but to keep the show rolling along in a cheerful fashion. The Boris who was a One Nation Tory to his core.

His audience in Manchester did not seem entirely comfortable with this back to the future Boris, with many a strained smile here and there. They had been encouraged to think that he would come out fighting, that he would tell the EU to “take it or leave it”. Perhaps they would have preferred it if he had taken the lead from his hero Churchill’s speech at Harrow: “Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” Instead he had warm words for his European friends. "We love Europe,” he said. “We are European.” His party did not sound so sure.

The speech’s final function was to act as a distraction from the fact that his new proposals to the EU, tabled yesterday, amounted to little more than a rehash of ideas that had been found wanting before. He promised that “‘under no circumstances” would there be checks “at or near the border” in Northern Ireland’. The proposals tabled later to the EU said customs checks would be carried out between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, and these would take place at premises some distance away from the border. So no hard border but a customs border. How many customs check centres does it take to resemble a hard border? If there are to be large distances between them, will the gaps be monitored and if so how? Just two of many questions begged.

In essence the plan does not sound radically different from what Brexiters proposed before, the only changes this time being the approval of the Stormont Assembly – the one that has not sat for close to 1000 days – being sought initially, and then again four years on.

Either the British Government has deliberately tabled a proposal that it knows will not be accepted, or it is relying on the EU27 being so afraid of a no-deal Brexit that it will agree to cooking up a grand fudge. Thus far, the 27 are not showing any sign of being afraid. There is safety in numbers after all. They reckon, moreover, that they still have options, chief among which is to wait and see what the Commons may yet do.

After the legislative spats and the court battles, Brexit is now moving into its psychological phase. Who will blink first, the Government, the opposition, the EU?

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Last week, one would have bet decent money on the opposition holding together. It had been a very good week for them after all, with victory in the Supreme Court. Scotland’s First Minister clearly thought so, seeking to keep the momentum going last Friday by moving towards the idea of Jeremy Corbyn heading a caretaker government of national unity and suggesting the tabling of a no confidence motion was a matter of days away.

Yet something happened between Nicola Sturgeon's bold intervention on Friday and the Monday get-together of the opposition. Suddenly, the group seemed to have itself lost confidence in its plan, such as it was. When they cannot even agree on a temporary leader it does make one wonder where they go from here. Is the alliance so weak that Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson saying “no” on Jeremy Corbyn is enough to make it come apart at the seams?

Mr Johnson has moved his position from one of reaction to action, even if what he is proposing amounts to little that is different. Those opposing his no deal Brexit should not hang around too long before doing the same.