IT was touch and go for a while there but we made it through. We survived the flag-fest that was the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

At the beginning of the week, it looked like I might not be able to block it from my consciousness, as I had fully intended to do.

My daughter says she understands why the concept of a monarchy, with the social and economic hierarchy that it perpetuates, is silly.

But that didn’t stop her putting on her fanciest dress and dusting off a plastic tiara as she fully committed to the theme of her school’s Jubilee disco. Thankfully, her pleas to watch the coverage didn’t last long. She managed 10 minutes of the dour marching before she switched back to Sabrina The Teenage Witch.

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Order was restored in our house, but that didn’t stop the wall-to-wall coverage of needy patriotism seizing control of the news channels for the weekend. And that annoyed me more than it ordinarily would because, as we all know, there are much more pressing matters we have to attend to.

Namely, the fate of greased piglet Boris Johnson and his precarious grip on power. The Prime Minister might have hoped for a brief reprieve from partygate as he put on his finery, asked an aide to check he’d done the buttons up correctly, and set out to join in the Jubilee celebrations. The assembled crowd had other ideas.

The boos and jeers that could be heard as he ascended the stairs to St Paul’s Cathedral with his wife Carrie was the sweetest song of the day. It was impossible to write off a crowd of royal watchers as a bunch of lefty woke remoaners so instead Johnson allies such as Nadine Dorries simply pretended that the boos were actually cheers.

That’s not scraping the barrel: it’s denying reality.

For days, there have been rumours swirling that the threshold of letters for a Tory vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister has already been met. It has been suggested that the chairman of the 1922 Committee, Sir Graham Brady, would wait until Parliament returned from recess to make the announcement, so as not to overshadow the Jubilee celebrations.

I know the Conservative Party is a law unto itself at the best of times but if the fate of the Prime Minister has been put on hold so fans of the royals can put up bunting and toast the monarch without distraction then I will be very annoyed.

My annoyance would undoubtedly be brief, though, because after days of fawning royal pageantry a vote of no confidence in the lying, law-breaking Prime Minister would be the perfect tonic.

It’s been a long week, so let’s indulge ourselves for a moment in that delicious possibility.

If the letters threshold has in fact been reached, Brady will inform the Prime Minister of the news at some time before the rest of us are told. From that point, things would move quickly. A vote could be held as early as tomorrow or Wednesday.

Most commentators predict Johnson would survive that vote; though perhaps by a narrower margin than his predecessor Theresa May did. This analysis seems to be based on the number of Tory MPs who are on the government payroll and therefore expected to remain loyal to the Prime Minister.

I’m not so sure. The vote is a secret ballot and there is no requirement for any MP to disclose (truthfully or otherwise) which way they went.

Johnson is not a leader that inspires loyalty. He has no real friends within the parliamentary party – which is not at all surprising when you consider how many of them he has betrayed over the years.

If he does survive, I think it will be due to the fact that there is no natural successor rather than because his colleagues felt true affection for or loyalty to him.

Partygate has dragged on for months, despite the Tories’ best attempts to declare it over.

If there is a feeling among MPs that “we can’t go on like this” then the Prime Minister’s time will be up.

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Of course, none of this may come to pass. If we get through the beginning of this week without an announcement that enough letters are in, then the Prime Minister is probably safe until the next crunch point: which will come at the end of this month during the Wakeford and Tiverton and Honiton by-elections.

As frustrating as it is to wait for moments of reckoning that never come to pass, we shouldn’t forget that Johnson’s inexplicable survival so far isn’t a win for him or his party.

He has long lost his authority with the public. His performative chumminess and man of the people act has been uncovered as a scam.

This week will be everything or it will be nothing. But whatever happens, ordinary people have made it clear they will never forget how this Prime Minister betrayed them, lied to them and tried to dodge accountability.