Boris Johnson is doing his level best to make an already overcome-by-events Prime Minister Theresa May into a gibbering idiot. The perpetually pained May seems to be doing her level best to prove him correct.

Widely speculated as positioning himself to challenge May for the Prime Minister’s  chair, he let it be known Monday afternoon that he was going on offense…or offensive, depending on your point of view. Having resigned from the government over May’s Chequers’ blueprint for Brexit, Johnson has stepped up his attacks and attention grabbing stunts.

Boris Johnson was today accused of not doing “grown-up” politics – then set about proving his critics right with a childish jibe at Theresa May.

The scheming former Home ­Secretary mocked the PM’s claim the naughtiest thing she has done is run through a farmer’s wheatfield by re-creating the scene.

Johnson tried to humiliate Mrs May with the clearly staged picture near his Oxfordshire home where he knew photographers were gathered.

In a speech to party faithful at the Conservative Party Conference Tuesday, Johnson is reportedly going to tap into some very old fashioned, currently not in vogue concepts:

Former foreign minister Boris Johnson will say on Tuesday the governing Conservative Party should not “ape” the policies of Britain’s opposition Labour and instead return to its true values of low tax and law and order.

In a speech that will do little to temper talk that Johnson, who quit government over Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit plan, is launching a bid to replace her, the Brexit supporter will urge the party to “believe in Conservative values”.

…His speech on Tuesday to the party looked set to overshadow May’s efforts to present a united front over Brexit and to energize her party to engage with the many millions in Britain who voted for Labour’s leftist policies in last year’s election, depriving the Conservatives of a parliamentary majority.

“We must on no account follow (Labour leader Jeremy) Corbyn, and start to treat capitalism as a kind of boo word,” he will say, according to excerpts of his speech.

“We can’t lose our faith in competition and choice and markets but we should restate the truth that there is simply no other system that is so miraculously successful in satisfying human wants and needs.”

This is really the last thing the struggling Prime Minister needs to hear. She’s had a tough weekend, what with European Union diplomats dissing her publicly and all.

EU diplomats have rejected Theresa May’s conference pitch that Brussels must move first to break the deadlock over negotiations as Jean-Claude Juncker said British people were only “finding out now” about the scale of the problems caused by Brexit.

The European commission president told an audience in Germany that he regretted that the voters had not been properly informed ahead of the Brexit referendum in 2016. He claimed that UK ministers were only now discovering the costs.

The bossy Brussels bunch is even willing to go so far as threatening people’s pets. Nothing like pointing out to Priscilla in Pucklechurch that her desire to have her country back will negatively impact her taking the Peekapoo to Paris.

Juncker said British tourists’ pets would face four days of quarantine, and flights could indeed be grounded despite claims to the contrary emanating from Whitehall.

“So if I start to even ask myself what’s going to happen to the 250,000 dogs and cats that leave the European continent every year,” Juncker told an audience in Freiburg. “Right now they just pass through customs, all these dogs and cats coming to mainland Europe every year. There are lots of people in Europe who just want people and animals to cross borders but I think we’re just going to have four-day quarantine and if you want to go to Brittany for eight days for vacation then maybe you need to leave the dog or the cat at home but maybe you’ll just stay home altogether.”

Talk about your bloodless cadavers applying the emotional screws to grannies! Coupled with the May government’s inability to get even Brexit negotiations moving, no WONDER Boris Johnson is finding the timing perfect to strike.

On Monday the Brexit secretary Dominic Raab told Tory delegates that the EU’s “theological approach” allowed no room for serious compromise. “If the EU want a deal, they need to get serious. And they need to do it now.” In an interview with the Sun, he said the EU had not offered credible alternatives to the UK government proposals. “The ball is in their court.”

Rejecting this characterisation, an EU source said both sides had to move if the talks were to progress: “In a way the ball is just as much in the UK’s court as the EU’s. We are at a point in the negotiations when neither side can say ‘the ball is in your court’. If the UK doesn’t pick up the ball, we will.”

“Ball’s in YOUR court” “NO! Ball’s in YOURS!” “I know you are, but what am I?” “Infinity!”

I KNOW this waffling  is not what 17 million Brits voted for.

MP Jacob-Rees Mogg, another Conservative name bandied about as a possible May replacement (and very much favored by Nigel Farage), took to the airwaves Monday afternoon to explain both May’s conundrum with her fading Chequers plan, and a relatively new concept called the “Super Canada Plan.”

He is a sober, serious, reportedly brilliant man, unlike Johnson’s reputation. In point of fact, many of the U.K. papers are doing what our very own MSM does here – making sure the whole of the country knows that Boris Johnson is a 1) buffoon 2) unstable 3) childish 4) doesn’t have a prayer in Hell whatever his ulterior motives. Exhibit Number 1:

Boris Johnson steps up his bid to topple Theresa May he lives up to criticisms that he’s incapable of ‘grown-up’ politics

There’re LOTS more in the same vein where that came from. They are playing a dangerous game, uniformly tarring him unmercifully. It could backfire. Been known to happen (winkwinknudgenudgesaynomoresaynomore).

May is not due to call an election until 2022, but the pressure is building on her – the screws tightening from either side. Gads. She’s already reduced to planning spectacles to divert from her sorry efforts, a la Roman emperors and the Coliseum.

Theresa May has been ruthlessly mocked for unveiling plans to repeat the 1950s Festival of Britain to mark the start of Brexit.

Usually the opening day of the Conservative Party Conference is a time to make a big promise to the nation about the issues that matter.

But instead, while 4million children live in poverty, Mrs May trumped plans for a £120million festival “echoing” the days of Queen Victoria.

The new festival will have an Olympic-style “delivery body” and be held in early 2022, months after Brexit begins in earnest, and optimistic Tory chiefs claim it would generate “billions” of pounds for the economy.

That’ll work.

Brussels will continue to sniff in England’s direction whenever she offers yet another plan, and the folks who voted for Brexit are about over her tergiversation. The time may just be ripe for an out-of-the-box “buffoon” who speaks to BRITISH souls.

Johnson said Trump, who is locked in a battle over metal tariffs with European allies including Britain, would take a stronger approach if he were in charge of the negotiations.

“Imagine Trump doing Brexit,” said Johnson.

“He’d go in bloody hard … There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he’d gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere. It’s a very, very good thought.”

Johnson also appeared to criticise finance minister Philip Hammond, who is regarded as one of the most pro-European members of May’s cabinet and has drawn criticism from eurosceptics.

The Treasury is “basically the heart of Remain” and is trying to stop Britain from having full freedom on trade policy after Brexit by keeping it tied to the EU’s customs union and to a large extent the single market, Johnson said according to BuzzFeed.

Tuesday’s speech will be indicative of whether Boris Johnson can jettison the buffoon image and articulate a vision.

If he pulls it off, Theresa May’s waffles may get burnt.

Feature Photo Credit: ANDREW PARSONS