Is the mayor scheming to get Dave’s job?

What is Boris Johnson up to? With the London Olympics being only a year off he’s hardly been off our screens and even before that he was getting attention putting forward his plan to deal with Britain’s growth challenge. The fact that his proposals were out of kilter with current coalition policy is neither here nor there.

Just look at his responses in the final minute or so of the John Snow’s C4 News interview last night. Is he just having fun or does he harbour ambitions to get Cameron’s job.

Remarkably, given he’s not even an MP, Ladbrokes make him the 4/1 favourite to be the next Tory leader. It seems a silly bet but could be be plotting something?

If he is then the time might never be better. If Andy Coulson is charged then Cameron is going to come under a lot of pressure. Wouldn’t that be the ideal situation for the Mayor who was Dave’s compatriot at both Eton and Oxford?

But as long as Boris is not in parliament he would be unable to do anything to exploit any perceived weakness.

There are only ten months to go before the May 2012 London mayoral election and Boris really doesn’t have much time. He could hardly win a second term and then resign afterwards to get back into the commons.

The problem with by-elections is that in recent times Tory MPs have been a very healthy lot and only once in the past decade has a vacancy occurred through ill-health or death.

So unless a friendly sitting MP is ready to step aside to make way for Boris then it’s hard to see how he could get back.

@MikeSmithsonPB