So, it has finally happened… Boris Johnson is gone. Or, going (believe it when the gold wallpaper is peeled off). Nevertheless, his legacy lives on. Not, perhaps, how he believes it should be, but in the unlikely form of Andrew Le Page, a 27-year-old Dubai-based real estate agent and a contestant on this year’s Love Island who has exhibited a similarly expert economy with the facts and ability to use words to downplay a sticky situation.

Fellow viewers of Love Island don’t need a refresh on the details of last week’s ‘tit-gate’, but for anyone else, the basics. During the Casa Amor lads’ holiday – billed among the contestants as the ultimate relationship ‘test’ (my parents have been married for 40 years next year, and I do wonder how they’ve made it last without embarking on such Homeric challenges) – Le Page, apparently, ended up with a boob in his mouth. Crucially, not one belonging to Tasha Ghouri, the woman he had been partnered up with since the beginning, but a new bombshell, Coco Lodge. He had forgotten all about this – until Lodge outed him. Le Page had no choice, he had to come clean (kinda), which resulted in this compelling, now-iconic exchange with Ghouri.

Him: ‘I sucked her tits, or whatever’.

Her: ‘You what?’

Him: ‘I licked her tit, or whatever’.

There is much to unpick in this exchange; the immediate downgrading from tits (multiple) to tit (singular), the swift change of verb. But the real killer in this limping mea culpa was in the ‘or whatever’. Said with the same off-the-cuff casualness of someone deciding what to have for dinner (‘baked potato, or whatever’), in his simple repetition of two tiny words he attempted to diffuse and demote the situation. It’s a move straight out of the Johnson playbook. Work meeting, or whatever. Flat renovation, or whatever. Get Brexit done, or whatever.

Still, Love Island is a game – albeit one that occasionally involves sucking/licking tits/tit (despite the surplus of tits, Downing Street is unbelievably Real Life). The real Love Island winner is not the person who takes home the prize money, or even a relationship, but who gets the most airtime. And here, we must salute Le Page. Relegated to the role of what’s-his-name support act for the first few weeks, he has suddenly catapulted to main part status. And all because of two words. Find a lesson there if you want. Or whatever.

Laura