Boris spoils Cameron’s party

It's been a long time since Conservative leaders looked forward to the latest opinion polls. But David Cameron will be secretly relishing the polls expected later this week, which are thought bound to show him surging ahead of Gordon Brown in the popularity stakes after the Northern Rock fiasco and the muddle over the 25m missing tax records.

But there's another poll the Tory leader won't be so thrilled by. It shows that Boris Johnson, Cameron's choice for Tory mayoral candidate for London, is not making the sort of headway his boss had been hoping for. The poll by YouGov for the London Police Institute puts the current Labour mayor Ken Livingstone on 45 per cent, with Boris on 39 per cent and Brian Paddick of the Lib Dems on eight per cent.

As The First Post reported a week ago, fellow Conservatives are asking questions about Boris's lack of impact on the race. The most potent piece of 'advertising' for Boris is a YouTube a clip of the MP head-butting a German player in a charity football match. At the time of publication, the number of views recorded at YouTube for the footage of Henley's blond bomber in action was nearing the million mark. As of this morning, views had passed 1,007,000. ·