I hate to say this, but I thought his press conference pitch this evening was on the money...

I agree. When I first heard the thing was being pre-recorded I thought the primary reason was to avoid being questioned about the party and the rest. Well, I am sure that is at least partially true, but putting a different spin on it, it avoided the important message being lost amid a media frenzy.

There was a second effect of it though. Apart from the unkempt appearance, 'Boris' was not in evidence. Instead, we had the Prime Minister speaking is a direct way, with no burbling, or obfuscation, or obvious misdirection. It showed that Johnson can be serious when need be.

I saw no obvious edits, and of course we do not know how many attempts to record it were rejected as 'not being serious enough'. But Steve is quite right: this was what was needed.