Boris to the fore

Politics has a big, blond hair-do today, with Boris wiff-waffing all across the airwaves. The Mayor of London has already, this morning, called on George Osborne to do more to cut taxes, specifically the 50p rate and national insurance. And he will be leading a series of events, throughout the day, to mark the fact that the Olympic Games are exactly one year away. The Aquatic Centre will be baptised, the medal designs revealed, and general celebration staged across the city.

It’s difficult not to see all this as part of Boris’s re-election bid, and perhaps as a marker for his wider ambitions. Although London’s Olympics have not been an unambiguous positive so far, they still give him a bigger and friendlier platform than most politicians will enjoy over the coming year. And they still might give him an opportunity to repay Londoners for stumping up in the first place.