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This is the biggest washout of modern times, folks. Gallup just this week put the likeability ratings at Obama 60, Romney 31. It’s not that Obama’s number is unusually high. Look back at those Kerry-Bush numbers. Americans are an open-hearted lot, at least presumptively, so they want to like the guy who’s going be the president. But they Do. Not. Like. Mitt. Romney.

there’s something very reassuring about this country reposing in those numbers, that the black guy with the weird name who’s been called everything under the sun is twice as likeable as the rich white guy. This is the America that drives the wingers crazy, but that the rest of us—the majority—live in, and love.

Brexit will be the defining issue of Mrs May’s premiership. It cannot just be cordoned off. Moreover, its success depends not just on how it is perceived at home, and how it goes down in the Conservative Party, but what it actually achieves. On that front, the prime minister has appointed the wrong people.

The new foreign secretary is clever, worldly and magnetic, as I argued in my recent profile of him. Personally he is likeable. But he is also gaffe-prone and the progenitor of a series of undiplomatic comments about other peoples. Much more damning: he is unscrupulous, unserious and poorly organised. His leadership campaign failed not because he lacked the potential to go all the way, but because he struggled with basic daily tasks. Michael Gove only plunged the dagger twixt the former mayor’s shoulder blades because he had been driven to exasperation by Mr Johnson’s forgetfulness and lack of preparation (rumour has it he had written barely a third of his announcement speech by the early hours of the day he was due to give it).

Brexit, believe it or not, is about more than opinion polls and Tory traumas. It is about Britain’s future: a future that will turn not on the doubtful willingness of foreign governments to bend over backwards to tolerate British demands, but on the ability of the government in London to persuade them of its case and reconcile the desires of the British electorate with those of EU27 electorates. Brexiteers do not like to admit it, but whether or not Britain gets a deal that will satisfy its population and rein in the populist surge in the country is largely a function of that ability.

Mike Pence scored a narrow win over Tim Kaine in the vice presidential debate Tuesday night, according to a CNN/ORC instant poll, with 48% of voters who watched the debate saying Pence did the better job while 42% think Kaine had the best night

just 14% said he did worse than they thought he would

with 43% saying he did worse than they expected and 38% saying he outperformed their expectations.