There has been a lot of allegations that they Mayor of London may have ‘played away’ over the last few weeks and now, Bozza might face the star of the 1970s BBC show Play Away in the 2010 Mayoral elections.
(Zing! You see what we did, there? Ahem.)
This is because former Play Away and Playschool TV presenter Floella Benjamin is being lined up by the Liberal Democrats to stand at the next mayoral election. Faced with the prospect of part-time stand-up comic Lembit Opik seeking the nomination, senior Liberal Democrats have moved quickly to find a high profile nominee capable of taking on Boris and either Ken Livingstone or Oona King.
(Quite why the Lib Dems need to put up a candidate against the Tories in an election mid-coalition is anyone’s guess, but there you are.)
Lady Benjamin, 60, is a long-standing Lib-Dem supporter and was recently made a peer. She has not yet confirmed whether she will stand as the third party candidate.
One party source said: “Floella would be a good option for us if she can be persuaded to stand. She is a household name because of her television and acting work so is big enough to take on Boris.�
The party’s 9,500-strong London membership will vote in a ballot this autumn after party conferences.
Lembit Opik is just a joke, his chances of winning are slim to none. Lady Benjamin is a nice person, but I can’t imagine Boris losing any sleep over a challenge from her. Oona King is also a nice person, but serious contender, nooooooo! Ken must be feeling peeved. Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian said that neither Oona nor Ken were likely to beat Boris, and Labour would do better to take pause and wait until a stronger candidate had been found. Embarrassing.
All the Ken supporters seem to be able to do at the moment is dwell obsessively on unsubstantiated gossip about BJ’s sex life. There are various explanations for this. (a) They are living vicariously.
(b) They are embryonic pervs.
It isn’t doing a bit of good. Boris is still leading the betting with the pollsters, both to be next Mayor of London and also to be next Leader of the Tory Party. Shortly after the little local difficulty, Boris appeared on The One Show and the word that sprang to mind was “unabashed”. He was describing how to return a Boris bike and all I will say is his description was screamingly funny. The political landscape will probably be very different by 2012, but any other contender produced by Labour better be damn good.