BREAKING THE MOULD:Some British Conservatives believe Boris Johnson is the man who could be king, writes MARK HENNESSY
SOME POLITICIANS defy gravity, although one might have wondered on Wednesday watching Boris Johnson dangling in the air on a wire in Victoria Park in Hackney.
The effervescent Johnson had taken a trip, wearing a hard-hat and furiously waving two Union Jacks, on a 1,000ft-long zip-wire – known to aficionados as an aerial rope slide – installed as open-air entertainment for the crowds.
But the wire jammed. Johnson was stuck 20 feet in the air. There he hung for five minutes, good-humouredly flapping his flags as cheering spectators captured the moment on camera phones.
It all feeds the image of Johnson being everything that the David Cameron-led government is not: in touch with the public mood, fun and politically incorrect, but in the right way.
Johnson has had the best Olympic Games of anyone so far; perhaps even including US swimmer Michael Phelps, who goes home holding more Olympic medals than anyone in history.
On the eve of the opening ceremony, he stood on a stage in Hyde Park receiving the adulation of 60,000 spectators chanting “Boris, Boris, Boris”.
Little more than a mile away in Downing Street, David Cameron could have been forgiven for wondering what the attraction was of his fellow Oxford graduate.
Certainly, much of the Conservative-leaning press in Britain is in a state of froth, as they declare that Johnson is the man who could be king.
Telegraph columnist Benedict Brogan numbers among them. Johnson, according to him, is the man who can explain “Thatcherite truths in a way that doesn’t frighten voters”.
Brogan, well connected in Conservative circles, argues that Conservative donors are deserting Cameron for the cuddly embrace of the tousle-haired Johnson.
Pollsters are testing the waters, with a YouGov survey for the Sun yesterday claiming that Labour’s current poll lead would evaporate if Johnson was Conservative leader.
Even remarks that would bury other politicians in the current climate simply burnish Johnson’s presentation of himself as the public’s anti-politician politician.
Cameron and the increasingly wounded chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne are pictured as the men who will not take on the greed of the City of London bankers, for instance.
Johnson, on the other hand, comes out fighting, declaring himself to be the bankers’ friend in a city that has grown substantially in the last two decades on the back of the financial markets.
Johnson has invited Rupert Murdoch and his wife Wendy Deng to join him in the Olympic Aquatic Centre tonight to watch British swimmer Rebecca Adlington defend her 800m title.
In the wake of the Leveson inquiry and the closure last year of the News of the World following the Milly Dowler phone-hacking scandal this would be political suicide for anyone else.
Johnson has never condemned Murdoch. Such loyalty has benefits: the Sun, particularly, now lays into Cameron and Osborne daily, while ever more feeding the mythology of Johnson.
He similarly breaks the mould in enjoying a £250,000-a year contract to publish a weekly column filled with Latin quotes in the Daily Telegraph – a fee double his mayoral salary.
However, he would face problems if he did become prime minister, which he wants to do – desperately so, it seems – even if he hides it behind a barrage of humour.
Firstly, he is not an MP. Taking the London crown for a second time, he committed himself to serving his full four-year term. Such promises have been broken before, however.
Byelections will occur before 2015, if the election is not held until its due date, so it is theoretically possible that Johnson could come in as a late-charging white knight to save the Conservatives.
Increasing numbers of Tories believe they need saving. Osborne’s economic strategy – quick cuts, followed by pre-2015 growth – will not be successful unless there is a miracle.
For some Conservative MPs, Johnson is the man who could put forth the message that they want lower taxes and fewer regulations to convince the public to give them single-party rule once again.
Much of this is nonsense, frankly. Fewer regulations, for example, mean making it easier for companies to sack people, and cuts in benefits that would affect the middle-classes.
The merit of such arguments, and there is some, is unlikely to appeal to the middle-ground audience that the Conservatives need to claim victory.
From his eyrie in City Hall, Johnson can dodge the blame for the UK’s economic woes, since London – for all of its problems – is an economic powerhouse by comparison with the rest of the country.
Secondly, he can position himself as the anti-Cameron Conservative, even without stating so, thus foisting responsibility on No 10 for the difficulties that London is enduring.
These tactics work, but on the final bend with the finishing line in sight, a man must show his true nature if he is to win. In athletics, such displays are attractive. Rarely so, however, in politics.
The man who would be king is attractive to many up until the point that he wields the dagger so that he may become king, whereupon he is tainted by political grubbiness.
In the past, such contenders, Michael Heseltine for one, have fallen at the last hurdle.
Johnson defied political gravity in Victoria Park. He may not always be so lucky.