Another Plastic

Boris Johnson uses his 'lovable buffoon' routine well, even to the point of pretending that he can't play football properly. But it's an act that cleverly disguises a burning ambition to get to the top of the greasy political poll. He's not to be underestimated in that sense - a mistake that Ken Livingstone made to his cost over the London Mayor elections.

So as a Tory we can expect the usual Tory Eurosceptic nonsense to appeal to the grass roots and indeed Boris doesn't disappoint:

"In those days, the column appeared on Thursdays. On Wednesday afternoons he would typically seek inspiration by visiting his Westminster staff in the annexe room, where he would play a game to find the best idea. On occasion this would descend into a competition to suggest the theme most likely to produce catastrophic consequences for his career. One of Boris’s favourites was: ‘Why David Cameron is a complete c**t’ – indeed, he was so enthused, he even started to compose an introduction beginning: ‘One thing that has become apparent to me in my years of Parliamentary service is that David Cameron is a complete c**t’. Another time, it was, ‘Why I believe in a European superstate’."

And here's Boris rambling on about the Lisbon Treaty and the need for a referendum.

However...

From the way he talked during the fun and games, it was clear that Boris preferred the views and company of those inhabiting the more pro-European and left-leaning reaches of Toryism rather than the ones at the opposite end of the spectrum. ‘Boris and I got on because we have similar dislike of most members of the Conservative party,’ explains Chris Cook – one of David Willetts’ aides, also based in the annexe room. ‘He’s clearly not on the right wing, but actually quite Europhile in Tory terms. He liked to come into our office to gossipand bitch about the right-wingers, particularly Liam Fox, or indeed anyone else he thought had screwed up the party that week.’

The Tory injection moulding process continues unabated.