ROGER KIMBALL: Why we’ll all miss Boris.

Indeed, throughout it all, Boris — a politician with more élan than any prime minister since Margaret Thatcher — remained popular with the public. He was especially popular, I think, with the American public.

And why not? In the sea of squishy gray on gray that is the political establishment, Boris stood out as a vibrant, technicolor force of nature. He was probably better educated and more amusing than any PM since Churchill. It somehow seems appropriate that Macaulay made his famous comment in the context of a review of a book about Lord Byron. The scolds didn’t like Byron either.

On most of the big issues, I was at one with Boris. The biggest of the big issues, in my view, was Brexit. I do not think that partial recovery of British sovereignty would have happened absent his support. As the Tories huddle to discover a character sufficiently lackluster and housebroken to replace Boris, the greatest danger will be capitulating to the many Remainers who populate the party and would like nothing better than to return Britain to the jurisdiction of Brussels and rule by a Davos-inspired unaccountable elite. I’d like to see someone like Dan Hannan, Jacob Rees-Mogg, or (speaking of colorful characters) Nigel Farage replace Boris, but I suspect that the Humphrey Applebys of the world will step in and assure that the job goes to someone joyless as well as mediocre.

Speaking of Nigel Farage, that ardent Brexiteer told Fox News that Boris was elected as a conservative but governed as a liberal. Alas, that is largely true. Boris’s craven subservience to the “Green agenda” of the climate change fanatics and eco-nuts betrayed the country and help sow economic chaos. Deep down, I suspect, Boris must have known that (in the words of the commentator Robert Bryce) what the world needs now is cheap, abundant energy, period, full stop, end of discussion. In short, fossil fuels are mankind’s friend. The unpleasant irony is that their exploitation has made the world so rich that we have to put up with busybodies skirling about the dangers of climate change as they jet hither and yon to enjoy the fruits of a fossil-fuel-supported economy.

So what’s next for Boris? Could it be a return to appearing as a guest star on Top Gear?

Or perhaps back to writing sports car reviews for the British edition of GQ magazine, which Car and Driver deemed, “imitation Jeremy Clarkson at best?”

That might be difficult for a man who late last year, “spelt out the revolt against modernity that lies at the heart of climate-change alarmism when he used his speech at COP to complain about the invention of the steam engine. That contraption, which gave rise to the Industrial Revolution itself, was a ‘doomsday device’ that started the clock ticking on the eco-calamity we currently face, he madly said. And this is a PM who claims to stand up for British history and British greatness.”