Boris makes a big non-appointment

The Boris Johnson of old emerged today when the London mayoral candidate announced that Labour MP Kate Hoey would be joining his administration, only for her to say it wasn't true [to use BJ's famous line, it was no more than "an inverted pyramid of piffle"].

The Tory candidate had said: "I am delighted to announce that Kate Hoey will join me in my administration if I win on 1 May."

But Hoey, the Labour MP for Vauxhall and former Labour sports minister, was having none of it. "The key part of the Boris Johnson statement - ie that I will be the first member of his administration - is wrong. I have simply agreed... that I will advise on a non-partisan basis in respect of my lifetime commitment to bringing sport to the people of London."

In any case, Mayor Livingstone and Lib Dem nominee Brian Paddick were quick to dismiss Hoey's support. The former said she'd been "a sort of semi-detached member of the party in recent years", while the latter said she was "bonkers".

Meanwhile, with 48 hours left before polls open, the chances of Radio 4's Today programme nailing an interview with Johnson seem ever remote. As reported yesterday by The First Post's Westminster insider, The Mole, the blond bombshell has, thus far, ducked all attempts to get him on the show.

It is believed that the would-be mayor's handlers - notably Australian spin-doctor Lynton Crosbie - do not want him to face Today's inquisitors, particularly not Pit Bull John Humphrys.

"It is unbelievable that they've not been able to get him on the show. I know Humphrys has been champing at the bit to interview him," says a source. "A good many Today listeners live and work in London. Perhaps Boris thinks these people will vote for him anyway."   ·