Boris acts the clown but is he auditioning for PM?

BORIS JOHNSON had his audience rolling in the aisles during his speech to the Conservative party conference in Manchester. But his humour hides serious ambition.

Boris still bonkers

"The big blonde hope" of the Tory party actually gave a "slightly second rate speech", said Simon Carr in The Independent. "But Boris's beta is better than any other English orator's alpha."
 
He may have an ego the size of the second airport, but he survives because of his "essentially sunny, distantly benevolent, deeply competitive nature".
 
Yes, with Boris you always feel there's a bog standard politico making a boilerplate speech, but there's also an imp on his shoulder, egging him on, whispering: "Come on Boris, this is boring, say something bonkers..." says Simon Hoggart in The Guardian.
 
So he was praising the Olympic preparations "on time and under budget - so let's call a snap Olympics and get it over with!" Then he rambled on about the English rhubarb on the velodrome floor "to give it that beautiful rosy hue". He was greeted with excitement and enthusiasm. Like mist on an autumn morning, "the fog began to lift".
 
Leave them wanting more

Bozza was on fire, says Melissa Kite in the Daily Mail. Zero tolerance on crime was his theme and "he trampled over political correctness", bulldozing carefully negotiated coalition policies to leave them looking crumpled and irrelevant.
 
The audience loved it. They loved the corny jokes and the daft plays on words. It was fast, it was furious, and "left them wanting much, much more".
 
A serious contender?

What a letdown, says Andrew Gimson in The Daily Telegraph. Usually Boris can be relied upon to provide a "Tory splits" story to fill the empty day before David Cameron’s speech. But this time he stayed "shockingly" on message.
 
"There are fears he could be trying to turn himself into a statesman," Gimson went on. "He is in danger of losing his hard-won reputation for being gaffe-prone".

Yes, Boris's ability to make people laugh is a formidable, if unusual, political weapon, says Alex Stevenson on Politics.co.uk. It's hard to fight the sheer weight of his charm, except by pointing out that "the mayor is a joke, not a serious man for serious times".

Yet we are beginning to see signs of him being able to get the message across while keeping some of his unique style of delivery. If he wins next year's mayoral election, some are beginning to wonder if he can "go all the way". ·