“This has been an extraordinary, testing, momentous time for Britain. But we will make it through stronger and prouder.”
But it is too soon to write his obituary.
A tale of fatal misunderstandings, tensions and deep differences – and of a potential cycle of grievance which all the leadership candidates must stop before it starts.
Plus: Leadsom comes up on the rails. Why men should never wear red trousers. And: 100 years on from the Battle of the Somme.
“If anyone wants to get me to sign a piece of parchment in my own blood saying I don’t want to be Prime Minister – if that’s what it takes – I’m perfectly happy to do that.”
Today, the Home Secretary’s distance and difference from the two men who have run the Government and the two others who planned to succeed them is serving her in good stead.
“I have come, reluctantly, to the conclusion that Boris cannot provide the leadership or build the team for the task ahead.”
Endorsements don’t matter all that much. But the tone and flavour of coverage does – what stories are selected; how they are written; how they are projected.
There is a strong case for appointing a new Party Chairman who is neutral between the contenders.
It will risk being unable to get its business through the Commons.
It is unmanly for him for him at once to gesture towards the heat of battle while creeping quietly towards the tents.
As the referendum vote looms, Corbyn’s party is caught on immigration in a trap of its own devising.
The contention that foreign policy is the driver of Islamist terror has been comprehensively demolished.
Sure, a lot of mud is being thrown at them as well as by them. The difference is that it is beginning to look as though throwing it is all they have left in their locker.