Great White wants Red Ken's lunch

Let me say from the outset that I am a big fan of Boris Johnson's columns in the Daily Telegraph. They are written with alacrity, great humour, marvellous inventiveness, and demonstrate some fine literary dexterity.

He nails his colours to the mast every time, often just before it is shattered by some unforeseen canon ball, leaving Boris scrambling up off the deck and dusting down his braids and hat.

Flawed genius

Boris is a flawed genius who wears his flaws like campaign ribbons so that people warm to him all the more because to err is human and Boris Johnson knows how to err probably better than any other British politician.

Now he wants his party's blessing to run for Mayor in London and the newspapers cannot contain themselves at the slapstick potential in a Boris and Ken show running all the way to the May election in the best traditions of a Brian Rix farce.

Johnson is living proof that it is possible to benefit from a good education, to be articulate, to be able to quote the classics, to put forward a cogent argument, and yet still be a buffoon. His father, Stanley, puts it differently: "Underneath the buffoonery is a very clever man - a scholarship boy who went to Eton; he makes me laugh and that's a good enough tonic for me."

Buffoon sandwich

Stanley is right, certainly about the humour and the cleverness. But I worry that when you strip away the layer of buffoonery, exposing the unquestioned intellect, there may be lurking underneath yet another layer of buffoonery: the intellect packed in to a buffoon sandwich as it were.

Even as I'm writing this I'm wondering if this matters. After all, Boris is entertaining. He lightens up our days. The House of Commons needs such people. The newspapers need them. But does the Government, and, more to the point, does the Mayoralty of London?

Whatever you say about Ken Livingstone and I'm no fan - I would much rather share a dinner with Boris - he has demonstrated that he is a conviction politician who gets things done.

No, I don't like bendy buses and preferred the old Route Masters that you could hop on and off at traffic lights. But there's more to running London than bendy buses. Road charging was unpopular but it eased congestion considerably. Laissez faire Boris no doubt would remove all the road signs and yellow lines and make way for a free for all. I'd like to see that but I don't think it would work.

Slinging stones

Johnson is a populist who craves ever more popularity. He works best on the outside slinging stones. He's not a detail man. He says he wants to be like the town mayor in the film, Jaws, giving us the freedom to do stupid things if that's what we crave.

I'm all for giving people the scope for stupidity if they don't harm other people. So Boris should run and you should vote for him if you must. The Monster Raving Loony Party should pack its bags and disband. We ain't see nothing yet.