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So, Boris Johnson has quit. Again.

He quit Downing Street. Now he’s resigned from parliament. Whatever next?

The man who likes to storm off in a huff is running out of places to go. The next time he fancies a flounce, he might have to leave the country. Or call Elon Musk to book a one-way ticket to Mars.

It was the same week that we discovered that his old chum Donald Trump would become the first US president indicted by federal prosecutors to be charged with putting America’s security at risk.

But the manic pumpkin and the blond buffoon have both vowed to fight on – unless, of course, both are now going to be too busy vying for the titles of “least convincing hair in world politics” and “most outrageous partygoer”.

Indeed, having been born in the United States, Boris Johnson might even in his madness now have the White House in his sights.

When last year he announced his departure from Downing Street, Mr. Johnson had quoted from Arnold Schwarzenegger and ancient Roman history in typically eccentric allusions to his possible return. His recent resignation from parliament – “at least for now” – includes that similar caveat.

His resignation statement was crammed with his usual mealy-mouthed excuses and denials, attempting once more to portray himself as the victim of political persecution. Like Mr. Trump, he declared he’d been subject to a “witch hunt”. Some hearts may have bled for him, but more stomachs churned.

One of his former colleagues told the BBC that his announcement represented “a thousand words that tell you everything about Johnson’s mindset – it’s your fault, not mine”.

His description of the investigation into his conduct as a “kangaroo court” was condemned by one member of the inquiry committee for impugning the integrity of parliament.

Despite months of screaming headlines in the Daily Mail, it’s difficult to see the inquiry’s findings as politically motivated. In fact, the majority of members of its committee had been the former premier’s fellow Conservatives.

Published last Thursday, the committee's report reveals that it would have recommended an extraordinary ninety-day suspension for “repeatedly” misleading the House on “an issue of the greatest importance”. That’s nine times longer than the sanction necessary to prompt a recall petition from his constituency – which could then in turn have triggered a by-election and the prospect of his rejection by his own constituents.

The report also accused Mr. Johnson of being “complicit” in a campaign which sought to abuse and intimidate members of the committee. It adds that the stream of bile he subsequently launched against the inquiry committee amounted to nothing less than “an attack on our democratic institutions” themselves.

It therefore went on to propose that Johnson be denied the parliamentary pass usually granted to former MPs.

The bombastic blusterer’s continued bleating claims that he never intended to mislead the House of Commons about his propensity to party through pandemic lockdowns will find little sympathy amongst the general public. A recent opinion poll showed that an extraordinary 85 per cent of voters believed that he had lied.

(That percentage is huge. It’s virtually impossible to get such an overwhelming majority of British people to agree on anything. Offer us the gift of eternal happiness and an endless supply of free chocolate and beer as a special one-off offer for Christmas and we’d still be bickering about it well into the new year.)

The respected polling analyst Professor Sir John Curtice has declared that Johnson’s political career is now over. It really looks like there’s no coming back from this.

Mr. Johnson only chose to leave parliament after having received a draft copy of the findings of the inquiry into whether he’d knowingly misled his fellow MPs. That report would have prompted a political process which could most likely have resulted in his eventual ejection from the House.

On the same day as his resignation, his devoted disciple (and one-time Culture Secretary) Nadine Dorries also announced she’d quit the Commons. Their departures will trigger by-elections in their constituencies. That appears, in part at least, to be the point of those dramatic gestures.

With his party languishing at least fifteen points behind Labour in the polls, those by-elections would be the last thing that Rishi Sunak would want to have to endure.

In fact, Ms. Dorries chose to delay her formal notification of her departure, so as to draw out the discomfort for the current government.

This has only added to a growing sense of perplexity and frustration in Whitehall and Westminster.

“It is obviously unusual to have an MP resign with immediate effect and for that not to take place,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.

Within 24 hours of his idle idol’s show of chagrin, another diehard Johnson fan, an obscure backbench Brexiteer called Nigel Adams, had also stood down as an MP, forcing the prospect of a third by-election upon the already beleaguered PM.

Johnson’s resignation statement called upon his diminutive successor to build what he called a “properly Conservative government”. There was real spite in that.

There are those who believe that there’s more to all this vitriol than mere petulance and bitterness. Some have even supposed that Johnson and Dorries coordinated their departures in a calculated strategy to ensure the former premier’s triumphant return to power: that their old leader will, like a resurgent Messiah, put himself forward as his party’s candidate to stand in Ms. Dorries’s former constituency (a safer Tory seat than the one he just vacated), in order to stage a miraculous return to the House of Commons, and there to slay those treacherous beasts who brought him down and take his rightful place on his golden throne as master of the universe, somewhere between Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher and God.

The weekend after his departure, the front page of the Sunday Express trumpeted his cheerleaders’ declaration that “he’ll be back bigger than ever”. (They almost certainly weren’t referring to the size of his waist.)

This may be just a pipe dream, and, at that, one suffered by someone smoking an especially noxious blend of psychotropic plantlife and bovine manure.

After all, it seems telling that, the morning after his most recent resignation, the presenters of the national broadcaster’s flagship news programme reported that they’d been unable to secure an interview with any single one of Mr. Johnson’s high-profile supporters, or indeed any top Tory at all.

It seemed that, for the time being at least, nobody wanted to be seen to stand up for their old boss – not even those whom he’d rewarded for their erstwhile loyalty with knighthoods and peerages only the day before.

(Not that Johnson had secured as many places as he’d wanted for his cronies in the House of Lords. Eight of the names on his list were vetoed by the appointments commission. Rishi Sunak has since revealed that he turned down his predecessor’s request that he intervene. Johnson responded that his successor was “talking rubbish”. Nadine Dorries then blamed the “sinister forces” of the current administration for blocking her peerage. The BBC’s political editor described the general perception of this feud as representing the former Tory leader’s “classic slapdash” behavior, “changing his story every five minutes”.)

In the immediate wake of the blond bombshell’s bombshell, the voices raised in his support were few and between. Even the newly knighted (but always entitled) Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg appeared to be too busy rearranging his old school ties to get on the phone to sing the praises of his discarded heartthrob.

It took him another day to stick his oleaginous bonce above the parapet to threaten “civil war” if his party attempted to block the return of his once-and-future king.

So, is this at last the end for Boris Johnson, the really truly final and ultimate end?

Well, never say die. Never say never again.

Never can say goodbye? He’s said it so many times, nobody’s convinced anymore that he ever really believes it.

Will this comeback kid manage to defy all rational expectations and stage what one BBC commentator called a characteristically “heroic” return? Or will he fade into the lucrative obscurity of tatty journalism and the corporate after-dinner-speech circuit?

Of course, nobody knows what his future might hold – least of all bad old BoJo himself.

The party may be over for Mr. Johnson. But perhaps other sorts of parties – ones more attuned to his work-shy, fun-loving nature – have now begun.