Could it be that Boris Johnson has finally met his match?
Pippa Middleton reveals in today’s Spectator that she has failed in her efforts to set up a game of ping pong with the Mayor, despite him accepting her challenge.
“It’s radio silence from the Mayor’s office. Is Boris scared or what? He should be,” she writes. When Spy asks the Mayor whether he is indeed avoiding a “whiff whaff” showdown, he suggests it Middleton who has “chickened out”.
In mock outrage, he tells us: “I agreed to the tennis at Queen’s recently on the express understanding that she would be there. Where was she? She chickened out.”
Boris may be muddling up his sports, but Spy is certain that Middleton will see through the bluster and claim victory in absentia.
David Lammy is building up his team as he prepares to launch a bid for the Labour mayoral candidacy. Spy hears that the Tottenham MP, who dropped out of the race last time to back Ken Livingstone, has been on the phone to Alastair Campbell to ask advice, and has been consulting journalist Martin Bright, one of Livingstone’s fiercest critics on the Left. They are apparently old friends.
Embarrassing scenes at City Hall yesterday where a poorly briefed Stephen Greenhalgh floundered during a crime Q&A session as his senior official desperately scribbled him notes. Assembly members lined up to tell the deputy mayor for policing that his performance was below par — and not worthy of his £128,000-a-year salary. Even the Tories were grumbling. “I am on top of my brief,” the Mayor’s policing chief insisted. If yesterday was anything to go by, Spy fears he doth protest too much.
