Must do better: Boris Johnson’s half-term report

On Question Time last month, Boris Johnson, London’s Mayor, was asked about his plans to build a new airport in the Thames estuary: an idea seen as reasonable by some and insane by others. As he blustered amiably away, saying not very much, a lady interrupted and asked: ‘Why can’t you just admit it when you are wrong instead of waffling on?’ The audience roared with approval.

It was an Emperor’s New Clothes moment. The innocent questioner had put her finger on Boris’s fatal flaws: he can’t admit he’s wrong, but he’s a little too lazy to do his homework properly, and that often leaves him intellectually denuded. The Mayor of London giggled, then drifted into silence; the cameras kept rolling and a question began to form itself in viewers’ minds: just how well-suited is Boris to power?

The questions that first arose in that silence echo even louder now, after the coalition deal.