The post you are reporting:
Matthew Parris writing in the Times.
I know David Cameron, not well, but I know him. He is not, as Boris Johnson is bizarrely now suggesting, proud of Brexit. He regrets the result of the referendum very much but he stoutly maintains that it was right to ask the voters, even though their reply was not the one he wanted. I have heard him refer to Conservative MPs who are fighting for a soft Brexit as “heroes”.
In no sense, then, is Mr Cameron sympathetic to anything Mr Johnson has been trying to achieve. Any such claim will infuriate him. I wonder if a desperate Mr Johnson is taking leave of his political senses.
There’s an old and doubtless apocryphal cartoon featuring a group of explorers who, cut off from their base camp, have been confronted by a rampaging bear. One of them is facing it. The others have retreated to a safe distance. The man facing the bear calls out to his fellow explorers: “We’re on our own!” From behind some trees the others call back: “Yes you are, aren’t you!” I cannot remove from my mind the picture of a tousle-headed comrade who is discovering tonight that, for the moment at least, his mates have scampered off into the undergrowth.
It will suit Theresa May very well to isolate her foreign secretary from his natural allies. She aims to pick off an already wounded beast and has chosen well. She will hope the spectacle of his agonies will discourage his natural allies from joining him. She appears to have struck first and, for the moment at least, to have the advantage.