Boris for Prime Minister?

Boris Johnson’s first year as Mayor of London has proved something of a shock, especially to his own side. His enemies, including the Tory parliamentary leadership as well as the sort of people who toil on the Guardian’s comment pages, find they have underestimated him. It suited them to write him off as a clown who would soon make a complete mess of things, if by some fluke he were to defeat Ken Livingstone in the election held on 1 May last year.

This belief in Mr Johnson’s ineptitude became unsustainable last October when he sacked Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner. The Mayor did not, in theory, have the power to sack Sir Ian: that prerogative belonged to Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary. But Miss Smith was clearly not going to do the right thing, so Mr Johnson did it for her. He showed her up. Gordon Brown was furious, and raged to his friends in the press that the Mayor’s behaviour was intolerable.