Ho, ho - BoJo? No, no!

Oooh-err, cripes! He's the lovable, capering political puppy-dog, the blonde-headed mop of a Mayor of London who we all know so well, and can't help ourselves from grinning at when he's on the box! Been on the box quite a lot too, hasn't he, what with the Tories' conference and all that. Boris, though, is also probably the biggest threat to the Labour Party's electoral prospects since that recent nonsense about (chuckle, chuckle) boundary changes.


Let's have another look at him though. Friendly-enough looking fella, but nothing more threatening than any other shaggy-headed, shambling, good-natured rent-a-Rah, right? I bet your Nan thinks he's such a nice-looking, pleasant chap. Thing is, good old Boris is the one man who has a decent chance of giving the Tories another five years. Now sure, we've more immediate and more pressing needs right now - PCC elections across the country, and by-elections in Corby and in Croydon - but he's Threat Number One in my eyes, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly - the comparison between Johnson and Cameron within their party. Cameron's widely perceived within the Tories as weak, out of his depth, and as making far too many concessions to the Lib Dems. In contrast, Johnson has fought two successful Mayoral campaigns against a strong Labour candidate, is seen as having mastered his brief as Mayor, and has overseen a successful Olympic Games. Cameron's seen as something of a loser - it's Johnson who's the consistent Tory winner right now.

Second, Boris appeals to a certain section of the electorate which isn't really interested in politics as such, but which has a feeling that the current political generation - Labour, Tories, Lib Dems, whoever - are out to shaft them. In this sense he's not a "Tory" as such - he's Brand Boris. That he's a public-school educated neo-Thatcherite who consistently pushes for some appallingly regressive policies is irrelevant, because he's simply not regarded as part of this political clique - and certainly not associated with Cameron, Osborne and the "nasty Tories" - he's Boris, the iconic outsider, the anti-politician, the People's Politician. A hero for the Top Gear demographic if you will - and of course, Tories will vote for him in droves if they perceive him as having a genuine chance of leading a Conservative government into power.

Finally, there's the Conservative Party themselves. History has shown what the Tories are like - there's none more ruthless. If they see weakness in a leader, the risk of losing power looming, they'll have no hesitation in getting rid and replacing with someone better. It wasn't the public who removed Maggie, remember, it was her own party - and if they can do it to her, there's absolutely nothing stopping them from doing it to Cameron. If Boris is seen as the most likely to rally the faithful at the same time as winning over the more general electorate, then he surely has to be Cameron's replacement - and aside from the Second Coming of William Hague, are there really that many other genuine contenders?

So we've a hypothetical situation where Boris is perceived as a winner by the Tories and as a popular candidate by non-aligned (non-?)voters, and where the party itself is prepared to make him Leader - how could they do it? 

In theory, it could be done fairly simply - a quick coup to overthrow Cameron and put in a caretaker leader while a Tory loyallist in a safe seat is influenced to step down, Boris then finessed into the seat in a by-election with plenty of time following to win a staged leadership election, bed in and ride a Boris Bounce to an overall Tory majority - but they'll have to act quickly if they want rid of Cameron. Any new leader will want a good year or so to bed in before May 2015, so you'd be expecting Johnson to be making a move toward a Parliamentary seat from which to launch a leadership bid no later than late 2013. This might be difficult to be done without clearly telegraphing his intentions vis-a-vis the leadership, of course - though the Tories never were particularly sentimental about this sort of thing; if the party want it done it'll be done whichever, and to hell with the consequences.

I think it may come down to an analysis of whether Cameron's seen as more of a liability than an asset, whether Johnson could genuinely make a difference to the poll ratings and give the Tories a chance at an outright win in 2015 - and if so, whether the Boris Effect would outweigh the negative impression given by what will clearly have to be a helluva lot of very public political maneouvring and plotting in order to get him in place.

Given the barnstorming performance of Ed Miliband and other members of the Shadow Team at Conference last week, though, I'm hopeful that the Tories will be defeated in 2015 regardless of who's leading the party. It's certainly looking like Labour's election to lose, for the moment at any rate. Mind, I remain worried that people on our side will still be laughing and sniggering at Boris, refusing to take him seriously right up to the point he walks into no.10 - at which point they'll wonder just how it happened.
 
So sure, by all means have a good chuckle at Boris getting stuck on the zip-line. He looks a bloody fool, and it's genuinely amusing - and good for the soul - to see him hanging there gently twirling. But afterwards, please have a think. He is a serious threat - we need to be serious about him.