Managed to piss off your employees, your opponents and your own party? No problem. Bore them into submission like I do:

Look boring

Deaden any attacks against you by sporting an unremarkable haircut, forgettable glasses, and a limp, quivering smile. Not only will it make you hard to locate in a room, it defangs any attempt to criticise your physical appearance. They’ll have to criticise your actions which they’ll struggle to remember, leaving them in a confused huff.

Speak in a boring voice

Bogging others down in the minutiae of a scandal works even better when you drone on in a dreary tone that glides off the ears. When you get to the bit where you mishandled it badly, they’ve already stopped listening. Switch to discussing a particularly interesting bollard you saw last week and they won’t even notice.

Be boringly awkward

Charismatic politicans like Boris Johnson are a spectacle even in decline. Being a pathetic little spod who doesn’t even react when his briefcase is thrown in the road? Takes the fun out of it. When they keep hitting you with fresh allegations and you do nothing, they’ll quickly tire of it and wander away. Worked at school, works in politics.

Be boringly reasonable

Nothing dampens anger like a bit of logic. When the press is baying for blood, discuss procedure, shift blame to another non-entity with the same fascination for rules, and debate it in measured tones. Even the most incendiary of scandals will wither away like cooked spinach, leaving you free to do it all again next month.

Bring up your boring f**king dad again

There’s nothing duller than something everyone’s heard a thousand times before, so I like to discuss my late father the toolmaker. You’re already so bored I could confess to murder in this sentence and you’d never know. Eyes glaze over, thoughts turn to almost anything else, and before they know you’ve scuttled away like a gray octopus.