It is all a bit of a shambles. Such is the take of one senior member of David Cameron’s Conservative party on Boris Johnson’s City Hall. The ebulliently expansive and, it must be said, still popular Mr Johnson has been London’s mayor since defeating Ken Livingstone in May. Last month, he accepted the Olympic torch in Beijing. But his performance is setting nerves jangling in his own party.

The spate of high-profile resignations from Mr Johnson’s mayoral team during his brief spell in office scarcely amounts to a great crisis. Albeit bruised by the credit squeeze in global financial markets, Britain’s capital seems to be getting on with its business. It has another four years to get the Olympics right.