YESTERDAY it became more and more apparent that the fight for the position of new Tory leader was beginning to resemble a bastard hybrid between the Game of Thrones and Blackadder after Theresa May, and at the 11th hour, Michael Gove all tossed their hats into the ring.

In typically bumbling fashion, having telegraphed his intention to stand Johnson then announced he would not be standing after all, making one wonder exactly what the last few years of his existence have in fact been about.

Maybe Thucydides had nothing pithy to say about massive malfeasance and blatantly bigoted campaigning …Still technically in the running however is IDS’s God-bothering replacement as Work and Pensions Secretary — Stephen Crabb, a non-entity lickspittle with views somewhat to the right of Torquemada when it comes to gay rights and same-sex marriage.

Another intriguing candidacy for the poison chalice of Tory head honcho came from Liam Fox, a one-time party big beast who became a spectacular laughing stock and pariah due to his bizarre personal and professional decisions involving financial irregularities and cronyism.

And here was me thinking they wanted a change from Cameron.The former defence secretary effectively pressed the eject button on his career five years ago, being forced to resign from the front benches in disgrace in 2011 after allowing his friend Adam Werritty to attend meetings at the MoD without the necessary security clearance and join him for meetings with foreign dignitaries.

I bet that kind of track record will go down well during those troublesome Brexit negotiations with EU member states. “Ah, Frau Merkel! Have you met my pal Adam?”

Turning to the other runners and riders, May infamously got caught out lying over the relative legal aspects of feline husbandry and got her days of the week mixed up while trying to deport Abu Qatada.

Gove, meanwhile, almost single-handedly dragged the cause of national education back to the Victorian era with the reintroduction of learning by rote and doling out Bibles as standard texts as well as wanting to buy the Queen a Jubilee Yacht from taxpayers’ money in the midst of the worst recession in living memory.

The last time such a grotesquery of malicious malcontents and back-stabbing blowhards was vying for primacy it was the Miss Island of Doctor Moreau beauty pageant. And the same dubious ethical standards would seem to apply.