Boris lobs festive hand-grenade into Downing Street

BORIS JOHNSON, the irrepressible London mayor, has fired another shot across the bows of David Cameron as he aligns himself firmly with the more eurosceptic fringes of the Tory party.

As the Daily Mail reports, Johnson told the BBC’s Andrew Marr yesterday that the euro would not last until the end of 2012, and that eurozone leaders should give up on "hysterical" efforts to "bubblegum" the single currency together.

This stance places Johnson closer to the 81 backbenchers whose defiant vote against the government led to Cameron using his veto in Brussels earlier this month, and will ring alarm bells at Downing Street that Johnson is beginning to build a faction in the party.

"I would be amazed if we were all sitting here next year and the euro had not undergone some sort of change," Johnson said in a set of remarks that will be music to eurosceptic ears.

"I think it highly likely that there will be a realignment in the sense that some countries will fall out... and we all know who the likely candidates are. Ouzo will be substantially cheaper," he said, referring to Greece.

"If we continually go on with these hysterical attempts to bubblegum the whole thing together we are just going to consign those periphery economies particularly to low growth and we are never going to get confidence back in the eurozone."

Despite gaining the backing from his backbenches after wielding the veto in Brussels, the PM faces perennial calls to lurch further to the fringes of the EU from fractious elements in his party.

Cameron must also maintain enough of a pro-European line to keep the Liberal Democrats happy enough that they will not bring the government down by pulling out of coalition.

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg warned in The Guardian last week against politicians of all colours using the eurozone crisis to foster "xenophobia, chauvinism and polarisation".

The London mayor is acutely aware that his machinations for a future run at the Tory party leadership will likely come from the right of the party, hence the lobbing of this festive hand-grenade into Downing Street. ·