There is so much to unpick here...

[Denzil_DC]

3. I'm unconvinced Johnson has enough backbone to turn against any hardliners,

but Biden's win - which seems to have come as a complete surprise to Johnson, Cummings and his team of "superforecasters" - has serious ramifications for the trajectory of Brexit, the government's barely keeping its head above water in terms of COVID, and the graft involved in the doling out of high-cost under-delivering contracts to Tory associates and donors is finally becoming too much of an embarrassment, so something has to change.

It's more that Cummings and his cronies have gone out of their way to alienate the civil service and rank-and-file Tories in parliament, and are quickly running out of road after failing to deliver at many levels. If you've followed Cummings' track record in government during his earlier teaming up with Gove, that should come as no great surprise.

It's probably too late to avoid a truly harmful hard Brexit, but it may just be possible to avoid the ultimate disaster of no deal at all.