"They'll none of them be missed" — so goes the lyric in Gilbert and Sullivan's famous opera "The Mikado" — as the Lord High Executioner ponders who is next for the chop.
Much the same could be said about the spate of ministerial departures from the British government as its leader, Prime Minister Theresa May, struggles to achieve a sensible middle-way compromise between Britain's obvious and continuing obligations to its European neighbors, and its desire to be free of the excessive restraints of a plainly outdated protectionist bloc.
The ministers now exiting May's team are not the compromising sort. Their departing language, especially that of the colorful ex-foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, is full of phrases about Britain remaining a colony or vassal state of the European Union. They insist on seeing the prime minister's latest and final statement of British Brexit aims, with its proposal of keeping to "common rules" with the EU in manufacturing production, as some kind of surrender.