A rant about the "Boris for PM" craze

What do you think of Boris Johnson? Funny bloke isn't he? Says what he thinks, does what he likes, and is a complete antidote to David Cameron. And it's hard to dislike someone who is a complete antidote to Cameron and his disastrous government.

Over the last few weeks the "Boris for PM" movement has gained momentum. He came out of the Olympics smelling of roses, managing somehow to remain loveable while doing really stupid things, like getting himself stuck on a zipwire. Any other politician would have been destroyed by that zipwire stunt accident. Can you imagine if it had happened to Jeremy Hunt? Or Ed Milliband? Any other poltician would be pretty much destroyed already by allegations about affairs and sexism and general prattishness.

But everyone seems to love him all the more. He can't put a foot wrong. And Cameron must be starting to panic. Who wouldn't be in his position. Johnson appeals to the Tory right, to the Middle England female voters, to pensioners, and to quite a lot of people who wouldn't actually usually vote Tory. I was sucked in myself at one point, actually believing he could be the politician to turn me Tory. Don't worry, I don't vote in the UK, and have seen sense anyway.

If the Tories want to remain in power, and actually win an election properly, rather than having to create an alliance with the Lib Dems, who have since proven themselves to be as spineless and useless as everyone suspected they were (otherwise, let's be honest, we'd have voted them in years ago) some kind of political coup is necessary. And Boris is their man. The only Tory, I believe, that could get them re-elected, and stop them from losing more voters to UKIP and Labour.

And after years of denying he wants to take over from Cameron, he is actually starting to drop hints which indicate that he actually might well be considering it. And if he does stand for MP in a nice safe Middle England seat he will win, there is no doubt about it, and it will only be a short hop, skip and a jump to ousting Dave.

The swing towards Boris being talked up in the press could of course be completely exaggerated. Boris started out as a journalist, so it could be that journalists are looking to boost someone they consider to be one of them. They could just be shit stirring to wind Cameron up (and honestly, what could be more fun than a bit of Cameron baiting?) But there's no denying that Boris knows how to work the media.

He is funny, controversial, charming, and able to laugh at himself, something which normal politicians appaear incapable of doing. His bumbling toff act is, however, just that. An act. He is far shrewder than he would have us all believe. Intelligence is no bad thing - quite the opposite in fact - but BoJo's act means that his rivals haven't necessarily taken him seriously over the last few years. Well, they should. And as I said above, Dave must be starting to look over his shoulder, as Boris' veiled criticisms of the current government are becoming more and more overt.

Again, can't fault him for that. I'm all for criticising the current government. But what do we really know of Boris Johnson's politics? He is eurosceptic (big no no for me) and talks a lot about crime and public transport. He is seen by the public as being honest, speaking from the heart and cutting out the crap. Careful people, Boris is first and foremost a politician, and a pretty ambitious one at that. Here in France he is being taken very seriously indeed. They have a bit of a laugh at his hair do, but I would guess that most French people know more about him than they know about any other British politician other than Blair and Thatcher.

It all seems inevitable. The Boris for PM people are getting louder and louder. Boris himself is currently pretty popular, for a Tory, and not really doing much to stop the rumours regarding his ambitions. But do the Brits really want him to be PM? Really? Someone to the right of the current government? Someone who, despite his intelligence, is a bit of a loose canon? Who has been linked to or at the centre of quite a few scandals and controversies? Who a lot of voters see, rightly or wrongly, as a bit of a harmless prat? Could this guy really  be PM? It's quite a scary prospect, but I will follow with interest, fortunately at a distance.