The blimpy lord mayor has helped build the feel-good mood that Britons so wanted, writes MIRIAM LORDin London
GOLDEN MOMENTS are piling up for London’s Cheerleader in Chief, but Boris Johnson strenuously denies his eyes are fixed on the winner’s podium.
London’s colourful mayor peddles a charming line in mumbling self-effacement, but inside, he has to be dancing.
For all his Woosterish bluster, he is, after all, a very successful and very ambitious politician – with a politician’s fragile ego and craving for public love to go with it. And at the moment, Boris can do no wrong.
Some have even taken to calling the London games the “Bolympics.” To be fair to Johnson, he is doing a magnificent front-of-house job for his city right now.
While others take the flak for empty seats, overzealous stewarding and pre-games publicity that has terrified people into bypassing central London, the giddy Mayor Johnson is feted wherever he goes.
He is the friendly and fun face of London 2012. People like that. More than most, he has helped build the feel-good mood that Britons so wanted for these two weeks. Once it was established, no better man than Boris to run with it.
Then the former Conservative MP emerged this week as the clear choice of Tory grassroots to succeed David Cameron as party leader. That sort of acclamation could go to a chap’s head.
So there was quite a deal of interest yesterday when Boris arrived in Trafalgar Square – where Nelson wears a Union Jack hat and holds an Olympic torch – to meet the London2012 volunteers working in the information booth.
It was a perfectly planned impromptu from the mayor (once the relevant major news organisations had been tipped the wink). After the princes William and Harry, old Etonion Johnston is England’s (and after this week, possibly the world’s) posh boy of choice. It must be galling for the insipid Cameron.
A line of cameras waited. The volunteers, in their 3P Olympic livery of purple, pink and polyester, stood by with growing excitement.
The PR team had arrived in advance, promising the assembled TV reporters from around the English-speaking world that their man would favour each of them with a few minutes of his precious time.
He arrived, pretty much on time. Except that Johnson doesn’t arrive. From the day he was born, Boris was destined to “bumble” and to “beetle”.
He beetles towards the volunteers. “How you doing? Well done! Well done, Team London!” Immediately, he slips into his routine, feeding the one-liners.
In among the uniforms for a photo, he keeps up the patter: “Do you like the way we’re not deliberately winning all the medals? We’re lulling them. It’s our national politeness.” The big shot international reporters go weak at the knees: bumbling toff Boris will go down a storm back home.
He is minutes with the volunteers, who provide the necessary hook upon which to hang those important interviews. Then it’s down to business. One after another, he performs for the cameras with unfailing good humour, a nice line in public school Latin and a permanently raised eyebrow.
More disarming than a bomb disposal squad, he seems the master of extemporisation, except that all his witty and entertaining replies stand on the solid foundation of pre-determined answers.
The questions of the day are obvious: what about that poll – should you seriously consider the leadership? What about the business bonanza that hasn’t materialised in Central London? Why did the Central line break down during the morning rush? The rest is just the fluffy stuff. A breeze for Boris.
His leadership ambition line is twofold: “Anyone who follows politics knows how ludicrous that suggestion is . . . it’s completely inconceivable” and “I am lashed to my oar in City Hall and I’m very, very happy to be so.”
The right thing to say. Not that anybody believes him.
Meanwhile, business people are seething over the dire traffic warnings that preceded the Olympics. For Boris, the response is clear: “I would much rather a situation where we deliver athletes on time.”
As for the Central Line – “frozen axle at Leyton”.
Boris beetled/bumbled over for the Trafalgar gig from the beach volleyball at Horse Guards parade. He’s quite taken by the sport, having already drooled in a simmering dispatch for The Daily Telegraph about “semi-naked women playing beach-volleyball” and “glistening like wet otters”. An American reporter says his comments have caused some offence. Boris bumbles that none was meant. The sport is “absolutely brilliant”. One can’t doubt his sincerity, because while photographs appeared of him yawing like a walrus during the men’s game, he was enthusiastically taking snaps on his mobile phone of the lovely Laura of Germany and lissom Maria of Italy as they worked their bikinis around court in the next match.
Then Boris moved on to the next interview. But he was thinking. . .
And back he beetled to the American. “Have I caused offence with my glistening otters?” he asked, doing that trademark absent-minded ruffle of his blond hair. “I didn’t notice.” Politicians never apologise. Boris just did, with a honeyed stealth.
Apparently the queen loves him. That must really annoy David Cameron. “He’s the image of his lookalike” marvelled a woman in the crowd.
A little boy asked his mother about the man with the white hair. “He’s the Mayor of London” she told him. “His name is Boris.” And the child, no more than seven, looked up and said “Johnson?” She was taken aback. That’s the power of celebrity.
The Mayor’s black shoes were badly scuffed and in need of a polish.
At one stage, his white shirt tail was sticking out of the vent in his jacket. What is it about the Olympics that captivates people?
“The glory of winning, the pathos of losing and the toil that makes the difference between the two,” declared the Mayor with gold medal eloquence.
And he beetled/bumbled awkwardly off, recognised by a Canadian athlete as he passed.
“BoJo, you da man!”
The packaging may come across as Tory Blu-tack, but blimpy Boris Johnson is one very sharp tack.
Everybody knows it.
And that’s his problem.