THE gentleman's not for purring.

Asked whether he would leave Tory activists "purring" when he addresses the party conference in Birmingham later today, David Cameron said: "That is a word which I'm going to avoid from now on."

There were, however, some feline sounds emanating from Symphony Hall during the keynote speech by Boris Johnson, who told delegates that thanks to the "wisdom of a clear majority of Scots", London remained the capital of England, Britain and the United Kingdom and would remain so for a lifetime. "You have permission to purr," he said. They did.

Ungrateful or what? The PM during his referendum victory chat with Scottish Tory activists at the Scots fringe had the occasion to mention Douglas Alexander, one of Labour's big beasts who helped save the Union, but whom Mr C quipped: "You know Dougie, he uses 50,000 words where one will do."

Back to the straw-tousled London Mayor, who delivered somewhat of a garbled message when he alighted on, post-referendum, the subject he termed constitutional common sense.

"I want to end the nonsense that allows Labour MPs to sit in Parliament and vote on English matters when English MPs have absolutely no corresponding say over such matters and indeed no Scottish MPs have no say over those matters as far as they might affect their own constituents. Only David Cameron is pledged to sort out that anomaly." Phew.

It may be the London Mayor does want to ban all Labour MPs from speaking in Parliament, but I think we knew what he meant.

As Alistair Darling contemplates his future post-referendum, Ruth Davidson noted: "Alistair's got so many rounds of applause at this conference. It's ruined his reputation."