Confirmed: Boris Johnson is a jellyfish

I’ve long believed that Boris is a particularly powerful blond jellyfish, swimming along under the radar, looking quite harmless, before delivering a series of painful stings to an unsuspecting victim. Normally the poor recipient of these verbal stings is David Cameron, whose face now forms a classic mask of horror whenever the Mayor approaches, knowing that not only will he be upstaged as Prime Minister by the Mayor, but also stung in the process by a sugary yet deeply patronising reference to ‘Dave’.

But today it’s Nick Clegg, treading water at the Liberal Democrat conference, who gets stung. Boris’ column this morning in the Telegraph is full of praise and flattery, while managing to undermine the Deputy Prime Minister rather spectacularly. He gives 20 reasons why Tories should save ‘the Cleggster’. They range from the truly praiseworthy – ‘If it hadn’t been for the good sense of the Deputy PM, we would still have Gordon Brown in Downing Street, biting his nails, chucking staplers around’ – to the downright awkward: ‘In fact, I have always thought that if you leave out Europe, he is probably a natural Tory.’