Sketch: BoJo the clown delivers; but don’t believe London will sate his ambition

Boris was suitably dishevelled, the bacon-scissor haircut in place, and tie not quite right. In the stalls sat David Cameron, his every inflection being scrutinised by a bevvy of photographers and cameramen. The Prime Minister, a rictus smile etched on his face, gave the impression that listening to a more popular, funnier Conservative politician than himself was his idea of a great morning’s entertainment.

Boris delivered, of course. Mr Cameron had called him a mop. Well, declared the mayor, Mr Cameron was a “broom” who was cleaning up the mess left by Labour. Mr Osborne was “the dustpan”, Michael Gove “the J cloth”. Almost any other politician on the planet would be laughed out of town with jokes as clunky as that. Not BoJo the clown. We were treated to more of the mayor’s formidable grasp of high and low culture which separates him from the masses. London – where “every single chocolate Hobnob in the world is made” – had been swamped by “eudaimonia” (meaning happiness) during the Olympics. In winning London, he had kept out a “Marxist cabal of taxpayer-funded, Chateauneuf du Pape swilling tax minimisers and bendy bus fetishists”. And, he added, he was absolutely confident Mr Cameron could now do the same in two years’ time. Dave, you have been warned.

To be fair to Boris, he stuck mostly to his rather limited remit, and exuded loyalty towards Mr Cameron. But in the passage where he did stray on to the national picture, there could be little mistaking his ambition and reach.

To believe Mr Johnson’s thirst will be sated by ridding the nation’s capital of bendy buses and giving his name to a set of bikes, or even an island, is risible. He took the standing ovation with characteristic awkwardness, before stopping above the photographer pit, to allow them to get their shot. A few years, and he’ll be hob-nobbing it back at Westminster.