SOME TIME after the event, Napoleon Bonaparte famously recounted that upon landing on the southern French coast on Wednesday March 1, 1815, from his exile on Elba, he and his followers were soon met by a small crowd of locals.

Among them was the local mayor, who upon seeing how few made up the former and soon to be restored French emperor’s party, told him: “We were just beginning to be quiet and happy; now you are going to stir us all up again.”

A student of history, one wonders if former prime minister Boris Johnson will ponder this particular historical parallel as he wends his way back to Britain via a first class transatlantic flight from his luxury holiday in the Caribbean, having made his intention to return to Number 10 after just 44 days of his own exile from high office?

Of course, the comparison requires a stretch in credulity, but taken in context, the same fear of being “stirred up again” that met Napoleon’s return to France will surely meet Johnson’s return to as the most controversial and divisive leader to occupy Downing Street in the modern era.

A sworn disciple of the Churchillian school of politics which holds that “success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts,” Johnson will be hoping and no doubt expect to be met with open arms by a demoralised Tory Party as something akin to a returning prodigal son and saviour.

Despite his many and manifold transgressions, committed throughout his controversial time in journalism and politics, Johnson, even his detractors have to admit, possesses that X factor which is rare in politics.

His selling point is his relatability, the fact he is not the desiccated one-dimensional humourless and gormless product of Middle England people in Britain had long and wearily come to expect from their leaders before he came along.

The scruffy blond locks, ill-fitting suits, practiced bonhomie, the over-indulgence when it comes to alcohol — the rapscallion character of the man — these are virtues not vices when it comes to appealing to a wide swathe of the electorate that consider him a refreshing and welcome departure from the norm in politics.

If Johnson does make a successful bid for a return to power, it will mark the tumultuous end to one of the most tumultuous periods in British political history and have screenwriters and producers scrambling to turn it into the next Netflix sensation.

Napoleon’s own successful return from exile lasted those legendary hundred days before coming to a brutal and bloody finale at Waterloo. Johnson’s own military focus has been Ukraine, a cause he embraced from the outset to the point where he became the most popular international leader in Kiev bar none.

Affection for Johnson in Ukraine remains deep and lasting, while disdain for the man in Scotland is unbounded. This is where we are when it comes to a British state that has shown itself to be more autocratic than democratic these past few topsy-turvy months.

Ultimately, if Johnson does re-enter Downing Street at the end of October, he will do so as the saviour of a Tory establishment that has done more to destroy Britain than Napoleon ever could.

For an increasing number across the nation this can only be a good thing and, in the event, his own Waterloo, when it comes, will be celebrated rather than mourned.