Morning:
8°c
Boris arrived to the siren strains of EastEnders. Peggy, unfortunately, couldn't make it but the Mayor is well capable of keeping the unruly crowd of Conservative conference goers in order by himself.
We began with a greeting for Manchester, "one of the cities I haven't insulted yet".
The Mayor is sometimes criticised for lack of concrete achievements. The cheek of it. As he rightly pointed out, he has fought hard to restore the image of the river to the Tube map. Who can possibly doubt its impact on the lives of Londoners?
The thing about being Mayor is that people can rarely remember anything you have done unless they don't like it. So Mr Johnson reeled off his triumphs, including persuading the Met chief to have the police patrol singly, rather than in pairs.
This instantly increased police presence on the street. That's one way to look at it. Another is they have the same numbers but are just more lonely. Massive applause greeted this obvious sleight of hand. Just as well BJ didn't decide on life as a conman, he'd be too successful.
"Bankers..." said the Mayor, lovingly, and embarked on a plea that the quality of mercy be not strained for the chaps who brought the financial system to its knees.
The cameras swung instantly to David Cameron who, having dissuaded his party from excess worship of the bonus-bearers, suffers the indignity of watching the Mayor whooping up support for them.
Boris entreated us to be nice to the pariahs of the credit crunch.
At this point I noticed Mr Cameron has a worry line from the right eye to the temple which twitches when Mr Johnson says something at odds with the new hair-shirt Tory line. It gets deeper every time he speaks.
The blond Lord of Misrule began the morning by jogging earlier than his boss - where he jogs, cameramen follow - and by calling for a referendum on Europe.
Are these two competitive? Well only so much as you'd expect from two Alpha male Etonians, locked in struggle for power and influence.
Europe rows are red meat to the ranks of banner carriers in the hall. We should never forget the Mayor built his considerable Tory power base as a Eurosceptic - and he has the footsoldiers. I shouldn't think Dave forgets that either.
After showing the instrument of torture, however, Boris left it out of his speech. Mr Cameron's twitchometer relaxed.
Too soon! The Mayor delivered a lecture on how to run things in a recession, and you know how much leaders love taking advice.
He included a defence of Crossrail, which the shadow chancellor George Osborne refuses to ring fence in his war on big number projects.
The leader's amiable face froze. On rolled the unstoppable creature, teasing, blustering, cajoling and just being Boris. The applause from Camp Cameron looked an awful lot like relief when it was over.
