There were tooting of horns, eardrum-perforating police whistles and so many camera shutters going off we could have been walking through a hurricane of flapping butterflies.
Up above, helicopters shuddered the broiling central London air like a scene out of Apocalypse Now.
Out on Whitehall there were rapturous cheers. From another direction, there came loud, furious boos. Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury had finally arrived on Downing Street.
Britain's new Prime Minister Boris Johnson gives a speech outside 10 Downing Street in London today
Carrie Symonds watches as Boris Johnson makes his first speech outside Downing Street as Prime Minister
The plods guarding the street flashed each other excited grins. Life for them is about to get a whole lot more interesting.
Minutes earlier, the Queen had asked the recently crowned leader of the Conservative Party to form a new government. With Theresa May’s eau de toilette probably still lingering in the air, it was an invitation he readily accepted.
More from Henry Deedes for the Daily Mail...
He crawled from his newly appointed armour-plated Jaguar into the sweaty heat alone. His girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, 31, meanwhile, stood in the distance with several government aides.
As far domestic circumstances are concerned, we had now entered uncharted waters.
Carrie had emerged ten minutes prior to her squeeze’s arrival. There were audible gasps when she emerged from No 11 with Boris’s old chief of staff, Sir Edward Lister. We’d expected her to stay well away. She wore a light pink summer dress and sported a trademark sleek hairdo.
Boris can expect a congratulatory high five from President Trump when the couple visit the White House!
The new PM made his way up the Tarmac with a purposeful stride. What a picture the old street was in the dazzling July sun. The flower beds were more preened and manicured than a Love Island contestant’s bikini line.
From my eyrie, his brogues could have used a touch of boot polish before his visit to the Palace. His teeth were gritted, those prop forward shoulders hunched. The long march to No 10 – it can turn even the flintiest of souls wobbly.
Click, click, click. Would there be a subtle acknowledgement for his maitresse-en-titre? A wink? A wave? A nod?
There was nothing. Nada. Zilch. Boris then made a bulldog of a speech. Plucky ‘write us off at your peril’ sort of stuff. Just the medicine the doctor ordered.
Boris Johnson gives a speech outside 10 Downing Street in London today after formally being appointed British prime minister
I must admit I couldn’t hear all of it due to the mob outside. He could have done with those water cannon he ordered when he was London mayor and which his successor Sadiq Khan hastily disposed of.
He adopted the Sir Alex Ferguson, siege mentality approach. They all want us to fail. Everyone’s against us.
‘The doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters – they are going to get it wrong again. The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts.’ You could almost hear the collective clinking of gin and slimlines in Conservative Associations around the country.
He promised more police, shorter hospital waiting lists, safer streets. To his left stood his copper, getting lightly flambeed in the sun’s rays.
Then there was a turn to the right. Was he seeking a glance at Carrie? Too bad. She was looking down, biting her lip and fiddling with her dress. Incidentally, a woman from Chinese television informed me that wives where she comes from wear pink to bring good fortune to a husband’s business.
Whatever your views of him, Boris is always easy on the ear. He knows how to hold his audience. What a relief after those insipid years of listening to Mrs May prattling on.
An anti-Boris Johnson protest at the gates of Downing Street in Whitehall, London, on the day he become Prime Minister
He spoke in stop/start spurts. Lento first, then prestissimo the next. ‘A better deal. That. Willmaximise-theopportunities-of-Brexit. While. Allowing. Us to developanew-andexciting- partnership-withtherestof-Europe.’
It was shameless, tubthumping, heart-on-the-sleeve, wet hankie stuff. Shades of hero Pericles’ famous funeral oration.
All the while he kept making those sharp, jabby movements with is arm. Zeus tossing down thunderbolts on his those with whom he feels enraged.
There were echoes of Mrs May’s ‘just about managing’ speech she had delivered here on this exact spot. three years ago. He talked of leaving no one in the United Kingdom behind. ‘That means uniting our country,’ he said. ‘Answering at last the plea of the forgotten people and the left behind towns by physically and literally renewing the ties that bind us together.’
Former London mayor and foreign secretary Boris Johnson is taking over the post after his election as party leader was announced the previous day
There was a Churchillian flourish as he spoke of the importance of getting ready for Brexit. ‘The ports will be ready. And the banks will be ready. And the factories will be ready. And business will be ready. And the hospitals will be ready.’
We had an air puncher of a crescendo to finish with. ‘No one in the last few centuries has succeeded in betting against the pluck and nerve and ambition of this country,’ he said. ‘They will not succeed today.’ This last comment he appeared to direct at the gates at the end of the street where the boos where coming from,
And with that the 55th Prime Minister of the United Kingdom walked up the step to his new home, turned and gave a defiant wave before the world’s most famous door swung open and swallowed him whole.
Inside, he received a stout welcome from the Downing Street staff who had gathered for his arrival. Head of the Civil Service Sir Mark Sedwill reached over gave him a bone-cruncher of a handshake before ushering him off to the bunker. It was time to get to work. A cabinet to appoint. People to promote, others to sack, enemies on whom to exact Homeric revenge.
So what now? Can he imitate the heroics of Hercules, return Eurydice from Hades and win the day. Or will he more likely suffer the fate of Sisyphus, destined to be pushing a rock up a hill repeatedly for all eternity?
We’ve heard a lot of talk from Boris down the years. Too much on occasion. It is now time for him to deliver. Courage, mon brave.
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News Photo HENRY DEEDES watches the new Prime Minister in the baking heat of Downing Street
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