"What do you mean 'I'm old enough to be his dad'?"

Bozza might not be the only member of the Johnson household to be elected to public office by this time next year following the announcement that his father, Stanley, has applied to stand for the Conservatives in Gosport at the next general election.

The seat is becoming vacant due to the current MP, Sir Peter Viggers, standing down at the next election after revelations that his expenses claim included £1,645 for an now infamous ‘duck island’.

BoJo’s 69 year old dad has local credentials after representing the Isle of Wight and east Hampshire in the European Parliament.

He also pointed out that he knows a great deal about ducks, as Ambassador for the United Nations Convention on Migratory Species.

For anyone who didn’t see it, there was a fantastic piece of Boris action on the BBC Newsnight programme yesterday evening.  The interview has landed the BBC in hot water over claims that they have doctored and edited the interview after Johnson repeatedly asked Paxman to reveal details of his BBC salary.

Bozza also quizzed Paxman about his time at Cambridge after facing a series of questions about the ‘high jinks’ that he and fellow Bullingdonian David Cameron got up to in their undergraduate days. It is alleged that the BBC also left out this part of the interview.

What was left was still terrific entertainment though as the two went toe to toe at the Tory party conference. Highly recommended, not just for the splendid new Boris Quote: “the blessed sponge of amnesia has wiped the slate of memory”…

Watch it until 12th October on BBC IPlayer (16min 30secs in)

Permanent Youtube video of the full interview:

The Conservative Party have enjoyed various levels of division over recent years.  Their current incarnation looks pretty tight under the careful stewardship of David Cameron but if there’s one word guaranteed to make the leadership cringe, it’s ‘Europe’.

Today, Bozza reignited the debate within the Tory party by calling for “a consultation as soon as possible” with the British people – read ‘referendum’ – on the subject of the Lisbon treaty.

Cameron has not committed to a referendum if the treaty has already been been ratified – he says he does not want to prejudice decisions in other countries that have yet to ratify the treaty. He has said only that the Conservatives “would not let matters rest”.

The Conservative leader also played down any division with the Mayor of London over Europe, saying “What we’re saying is as long as this treaty is being debated or looked at anywhere in Europe we can hold that referendum. That’s what Boris thinks, that’s what I think.”

And for those that haven’t seen BoJo gave to conference this morning:

BBC NEWS – Video of Full Speech

ITN News – Video of Boris’s Conference Funny Bits

He might well have his own TV channel by the time Bozza is finished this week.  Fresh from his ‘starring’ (ahem) role in last Thursday’s Eastenders you can expect to see the Mayor of London all over your telly box this week (assuming that you’ve retuned it properly, that is.)

First up, BoJo is at the Conservative Party Conference on Monday where he’ll address the Tory faithful and many believe that Bozza’s appearance could be the highlight of the event  (Not often you see ‘party conference’ and ‘highlight’ in the same sentence.  Bear with us.)

And, on Wednesday, More4 screens the drama When Boris Met Dave which recounts high jinks and tales from the pair’s days at the Oxford Bullingdon Club.  There’s been some controversy about this already as whilst Boris tells a grand tale of being held in police cells overnight after some drunken capers….er, no-one else actually remembers that to be the case.   A fellow Bullingdonian who was held in police custody denies Johnson was there, and a former club officer has also confirmed there is nothing in its records to indicate Johnson was detained.

James Hanning, Cameron’s biographer, said that when he was researching the book he found an eyewitness who claimed to have seen Johnson escape in a taxi whose driver saw him running away and called: “Hop in, they’ve just arrested your mates.�? Hanning said last week: “Boris was seen legging it across a bridge.�?

Anyway, the show includes the incident and will cap a week of television appearances ranging from the potentially sublime (depending how his Conference speech goes) to the downright ridiculous.

We at Boriswatch Towers are confused.

Regarding Bozza’s cameo on Eastenders, according to BBC News, “The mayor, who plays himself, had an argument with the landlady of the show’s Queen Vic pub, Peggy Mitchell, played by Barbara Windsor.”

Now, we have watched the episode several times and can’t find a cross word exchanged between the two. Sure, Peggy was a bit grumpy earlier in the episode after struggling to track the mayor down, but the second he wandered into the Queen Vic she melted and ended up flirting with Boris and taking a photo of the pair of them on her digital camera.

Former mayor Ken Livingstone has criticised the BBC for including Johnson in the soap after he was turned down twice by the Beeb as “they said it wouldn’t be right to have a politician on a soap.”

Defending his cameo, Mr Johnson said: “To those who say it is not much of a matter to appear with Barbara Windsor, she is a landmark of our culture. The arts, culture and media sectors in this city generate about £9bn, it is my job promote them just as much as anything else.”

(We will leave you to debate whether it is possible to include the words ‘Eastenders‘, ‘arts’ and ‘culture’ in the same sentence without laughing uproariously.)

Murad Qureshi, a Labour member of the London Assembly, said: “The BBC should always be even-handed and consistent when dealing with political figures, not turning down some and promoting others. It’s a coup for Boris, being portrayed as pretty straight guy on such a popular show. But I would question whether it’s in the BBC’s remit to influence the public’s perception in this way.”

So, it was the moment that literally, er, four of us were waiting for as the Mayor of London sauntered into the Queen Vic pub.

(missed it? It’s here on iPlayer until 8th October)

Yes, Boris made his TV acting debut this evening in the award winning BBC soap Eastenders as a bicycle puncture led him to the sanctuary of Peggy Mitchell’s boozer.  (Did he not have a repair kit on his person? And why did he have to have a pint of lager whilst he was at it?)

I am sure, however, that we were promised fireworks between the vivacious, forthright blonde bombshell (and Barbara Windsor) which were, sadly, not forthcoming.  Rather than giving Bozza ‘what for’ (as she had promised earlier in the episode), Peggy was rather charmed by our Boris and spent their entire scene fluttering her eyelashes at him provacatively.

It was hardly a call to arms for young voters to get out and exercise their democratic right, and neither was it a thrilling cut and thrust policy debate between two political heavyweights.

We at Boriswatch Towers did enjoy the way that the two of them had practically identical hair, though.