Moptop Bozza wipes the floor with Dave

UK Political Editor

Wednesday 10 October 2012

THE cult of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is something to behold.

IN CHARGE: London Mayor Boris Johnson inspired the sort of rapturous reception at the Conservative conference normally reserved for the Prime Minister. Picture: PA

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Sketch Michael Settle

Before he bounced onto the stage for the Tory conference's main event – apparently someone called Dave is giving some kind of speech later today – the faithful were queuing outside Birmingham's Symphony Hall for more than an hour; the kind of treatment normally reserved for the party leader (DC be warned).

There were even young, well-scrubbed acolytes sporting what can only be described as Beatle haircuts and Bullingdon Club-style waistcoats, eagerly awaiting the what ho! arrival of their bumptious idol. Birthday boy Dave was the last to arrive – to applause, naturally – followed by a gaggle of what are known in the trade as monkeys, cameramen all jostling arms, eager to get that snap of the PM biting his lip in anger or looking indifferent as Bozza set off on one of his linguistic mystery tours.Not to be outdone by Ed Miliband's adjective-strewn broadside last week against the omnishambles Coalition, Bozza said the Tories had stopped London "lurching back into the grip of a Marxist cabal of taxpayer-funded, Chateauneuf du Pape-swilling minimisers and bendy bus fetishists".Given the PM's "blond-haired mop" description of his chum, Bertie Wooster's alter ego declared to laughter: "Well if I am a mop, then you are a broom! A broom that is cleaning up the mess left by the Labour government and a fantastic job you are doing. I thank you and congratulate you and your colleagues – George Osborne the dustpan, Gove the J cloth, etc."To even more laughter, Bozza declared that it had been the Tories' historic function to be the "household implements after the Labour binge has got out of control".The mayor hailed the "Olympotastic" events of the summer and, as he put it, the "sudden switcheroo from the gloom of the previous weeks".He blasted: "The buses were on strike, the taxi drivers were blockading the West End - Thousands of the security staff seemed mysteriously to have found other things to do and the weathermen were predicting cataclysmic inundations for the night of the opening ceremony."But, insisted Bozza, a "giant hormonal valve was opened in the minds of the people", who were "suffused with a Ready Brek glow of happiness".The would-be premier hailed Britain's "can-do" spirit and praised politicians from across the party divide for their role in securing the Olympics.After lauding London's entrepreneurial spirit – the Dutch ride bikes and Brazilians use mosquito repellent made in London and every chocolate Hobnob is made there – the mayor insisted the Tories would take Britain from Labour's age of excess through the age of austerity to the Conservative age of enterprise. The PM left looking as though someone had just whispered in his ear: "You were the future once".

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Moptop Bozza wipes the floor with Dave

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