Boris in prospect

Shock-haired Conservative politician and Latin-quoter Boris Johnson (currently employed as Mayor of London) has announced his intention to return to Parliament as an MP at the 2015 General Election. Commentators assume he then intends to position himself as the next leader of the party and will bide his time before knifing D. Cameron in the back in the traditional way.

This cunning plan to spend more time with the Queen requires his selection as candidate for a suitable seat. This in turn needs a seat with an upcoming vacancy. What could be better than the very seat in which your correspondent has the honour to reside, namely Uxbridge and South Ruislip? Safe Tory, lots of golf courses and easy access via the M40 to Oxford and beyond where the current generation of politicos and obscenely wealthy supporters like to live. Sir John Randall, the incumbent, is to stand down. Boris looks likely to be a shoe-in. [I believe the expression employed here is better stated as "shoo-in": Ed]

Representing this area would present a few interesting challenges. Round here we quite like Heathrow Airport, where loads of residents work and we are very unhappy at having HS2 bulldozed through our town and across many beautiful miles of Bucks. Mr Johnson, I believe, does not approve of Heathrow and rather likes HS2. Perhaps he can remind us what Cicero said, when asked to approve the Appian Way extension scheme.

But now a heavier shadow has cast its, er, shadow. A man who is paid to put records on a gramophone and woffle meaninglessly about them by the BBC (and who I will not name because I don't like him and see no reason to give him an iota of publicity), has opined that nobody knows where Uxbridge is.  I can well understand that the aforesaid tosser doesn't know. But anyone familiar with the London Underground surely will, because Uxbridge is one of the termini on the Metropolitan Railway. It was at Uxbridge that crucial negotiations for peace during the English Civil War were attempted.  Here in Uxbridge you can shop at a real old-fashioned department store, Randalls, owned by the very man whose departure from parliamentary service has sparked this whole debate [What debate? Ed]. And anyway, what about South Ruislip, the other half of the partnership? Geographically I actually live in North Ruislip but the vagiaries of the Boundary Commission led to my ward being squeezed south of the border, so to speak. And therefore I can speak for South Ruislip. And that surely is enough to put it securely onto the political map.