There's a limit to what you can say in 140 characters. Notorious Tweeter @SteveHiltonGuru (not the real Mr Hilton) uses his first blog to examine the firestorm that might meet a Boris candidacy for the Tory leadership.
While many journalists talk about PM Boris as a matter of mechanics, your guru believes many have failed to consider the likely reality in a game defined by lust for power and the forces it unleashes…
As the Boris theories metastasize, uncontrollably the authors overlook one vital factor in their quest to divine the future. Well two, in fact.
Being the Mayor is a job that doesn’t attract serious enemies. You never shut a hospital, preside over heavy job losses, repatriate the fallen, or hike taxes. You may inflame some unions but that passes. All in all, nobody gets too wrapped up in what you actually do (or don’t do) - and if you happen to possess a populist touch, you can fluff up your personal profile. All good news. That is Point A.
Point B is that at election time, nobody is asking too many probing questions. All you need is some waffle about a 9 point plan covering bikes, environment, and whatever. It helps if your opponent has passed his sell-by date and is intent on self-destruction. After little scrutiny, you’re waved straight through by the voters into a summer of Olympic credit-feasting - where your main task is to play the compere, make "hilarious" asides when a camera appears and feign surprise at the inevitable future PM questions.
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Let’s fast forward a few years to a leadership scenario, assuming some MP has either kicked the bucket or greased the rails for a Boris anointment. (Advice to self-sacrificing MP: don’t hold breath for your hinted reward. It ain’t coming). It seems various scribes have overlooked the possibility of a virulent and prepared-to-be-deeply-unpleasant opponent. Their idle narrative installs Boris automatically, unchallenged, unscrutinised, untested. Wake up hacks. It doesn’t work like this. It never has.
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