Boris's Standard fanfare

Monkey was at the final London mayoral debate last night, held at the Cadogan Hall in Chelsea and broadcast live on Sky News. Evening Standard editor Veronica Wadley was in the audience, with hubby Tom Bower at her side, to watch her golden boy, the Tory hopeful Boris Johnson, spar with incumbent mayor Ken Livingstone and Lib Dem challenger Brian Paddick. Lest there be any doubt of Wadley's affinities - and let's face it, it wouldn't take a visiting Martian more than a few seconds to work out the Standard's position on this one - it was interesting to note she sat just three seats away from Boris's journalist sister Rachel. Boris himself showed no embarrassment at the support the Standard has been lavishing on him - which some insiders at the paper fear has been so extreme that it risks backfiring - and even castigated the Greater London Authority for leaving it to the media to hold the mayor to account. "Full respect to the Evening Standard," declared Boris, as Ken resisted the temptation to launch into yet another diatribe about the Rothermere press. Outside in the rain-spattered queue, supporters traded canny insults. "Ken spends millions of pounds of your money on a paper that nobody reads," crowed a Boris fan. Out of the shadows came the retort: "Yes, but Boris doesn't need to, he's got the Evening Standard."