The No. 10 operation’s decision to double down on the Starmer/Savile row after the Labour leader was accosted in the street by anti-vaxxers shows us how limited the options are for Boris Johnson as he tries to recover from the turmoil of the past few weeks.

The line from his allies and aides is that these protesters were shouting all manner of things, including about Savile but also about Julian Assange. In other words, they were wrong’uns before Johnson offered the slur in the Commons last week, and they would have threatened the Labour leader regardless.

This may or may not be true but as a line of argument it hardly gives Boris Johnson a statesmanlike demeanour. There wasn’t much else in the diatribe of allegations yelled at Starmer that you’d want to hear repeated by the leader of your country.

This line of defence essentially admits that the Savile line is the sort of thing that only conspiracy theorists who try to intimidate politicians in the street espouse. This is something that most people knew before Johnson dropped it into the Commons Chamber last Monday.

So his allies are, in effect, having to concede that the Prime Minister thinks it is OK to talk like those protesters. Even if Boris Johnson had been unaware of the inaccuracy of what he was saying, he has had ample time to correct that and apologise. His extremely partial clarification last week wasn’t enough for his loyal head of policy Munira Mirza. The gymnastics being performed by his lieutenants this morning aren’t enough, either