Boris Johnson is not an easy man to confront. On the eve of London’s mayoral elections we met in the coffee shop of a Marriott Hotel, just along the corridor from his campaign headquarters in County Hall. Johnson bustled in and ordered a cup of tea. He was his usual disarming, dishevelled self. But it was my task to ignore all that – and to tell him that many of his friends greet the idea of Mayor Johnson with a mixture of hilarity and horror. “They all like you,” I said wheedlingly, “but they all kind of laugh at the idea of you as mayor ... They say you are incredibly disorganised.”

Johnson looked a little pained at this, and took the only line open to him – stout denial. “I think I’m extremely well organised and always have been – and achieve a fantastic amount. I work harder than almost anybody else I know. And I take these criticisms in the loving spirit with which I’m sure they’re meant.”