Boris Johnson could make a great Conservative candidate for the London mayoralty, and a great mayor of London. But he’ll need to get the pitch right. I’m afraid the first thing he’ll have to do is steer well clear of The Spectator.
Boris Johnson could make a great Conservative candidate for the London mayoralty, and a great mayor of London. But he’ll need to get the pitch right. I’m afraid the first thing he’ll have to do is steer well clear of The Spectator. This splendid and in the best sense rather exclusive institution is the worst possible base from which to make a serious appeal to the much-put-upon citizens of the metropolis. There’s a worrying hint already that we Spectator folk think it’s all rather a hoot — Good Old Boris, Tally-Ho Boris, Stick it up-’em Boris, etc — which is precisely the note his campaign ought to avoid striking.
For if anything is to sink the Johnson candidature, it will be an impression of careless jollity — and he’s better than that. Frankly, we at The Spectator would all be doing Boris a favour if we pretended not to support him at all. We should run Tamzin Lightwater; then, finally — when her application is rejected — affect fogeyish surprise that in this age of media constructs and virtual reality the Tory party should still be insisting that a candidate actually exists.
A Conservative bid in London, if it is to succeed, should be distinguished by its earnestness. I was impressed by businessman-and-think-tanker Nick Boles’s preparations for a crack at the job (before illness forced him to withdraw) because he had begun making speeches containing facts and figures, sums, financial balances, transport calculations: the sort of hard-edged stuff on which Ken Livingstone goes wobbly.
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