Besieged by friend and foe, Boris Johnson had been facing a nightmare Christmas.
His doom-laden critics were delightedly forecasting a disastrous No Deal Brexit, record deaths from Covid and the inevitability that he would have to break his promise of giving families five days of relief over Christmas from pandemic restrictions.
Indeed, for those who, for years, have damned Boris as a lazy liar and a buffoon ill-suited to focus on detail, the unending crisis of the past weeks seemed to fit their prediction that Boris was leading Britain off a cliff.
Boris Johnson had been facing a nightmare Christmas. His doom-laden critics were delightedly forecasting a disastrous No Deal Brexit and record deaths from Covid