By Monday morning, all a reasonable person hoped was that they would survive the aftermath of four days’ revelling. Because almost everyone, republican and monarchist alike, commenced larging it one day sooner than they normally would (Thursday, not Friday), and eight hours earlier (11am, not 7pm) – and that’s before you count the variables, such as: is it possible to eat so much trifle that you’ve mixed your drinks before you even started drinking?
But Monday, when it arrived, had other ideas: enough letters from Conservative MPs had been sent to Graham Brady of the 1922 Committee to trigger a confidence vote in the prime minister, to be held this very evening. Ah, for sentiment’s sake, I’ll put that in full, in case this is the last time I have cause to write it: the prime minister, Boris Johnson. Which means that for the fifth day straight, a nation will be watching or listening to the same thing at the same time – the current affairs version of all warming our hands around the same bin fire. This is, by any meaningful definition, therefore another bank holiday.
Elsewhere, you will find useful content on the likely outcome, and what most probably precipitated the event, between the thoughtfully damning letter from Jesse Norman and that more playfully damning booing of Johnson outside St Paul’s. Personally, I prefer to think it was the latter, since it makes everything sound a bit more medieval (“And how did you deploy your democratic power, sir?” “Well, I dropped a boo, having first got up very early to join a mob.”).
But my job is just to tell you what all this means for our already-very-long bank holiday. If the vote is lost, general-election rules apply, and they demand that you stay up all night drinking, even though you more or less knew the result by 10pm. If Johnson survives to lead the Tories into the next election, Tuesday will be the day we celebrate the inexorable coming of a Labour government; sure, you’ll probably have to go to work, but don’t forget your prosecco, which can double up as both party spirit and ironic homage to the slowly departing cast at Downing Street. With a fair wind, and absolutely nothing else occurring, we might have calmed down by the weekend, which adds up to a nine-day spree of national carnival. It’s enough to make you feel quite patriotic.
• Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
