When I returned to my fashionably austere Travel Lodge room in an M6 service station a few hours ago it became clear that the broadcast media had obliged both Alistair Darling and the London Mayor by placing their respective contributions to yesterday's political action above that of David Cameron in the news running order.
Boris's speech was a masterpiece of positioning that, for his purposes, established just the right distance between himself and his leader, and skilfully fed journalists' reliably gargantuan appetite for any hint of a split or tiff. From my rather hurried piece for Comment is Free:
There are two categories of Boris story the mainstream media like: one, Boris gets into a scrape; two, Boris is at odds with Dave. Neither matter a hill of beans in terms of what Boris is supposed to be doing at City Hall, which is to improve London's transport, housing and policing and generally talk the capital up. Both play directly to Boris's political strength, which is to endear himself as a populist, forgiveable scoundrel and general flouter of conventions about how politicians should present themselves.
