Standing ovation for Bozza

Boris Johnson recalled the challenges he faced as London mayor in his conference speech

Boris Johnson got a standing ovation at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester today. How it will resonate outside the hall is another matter, but in a sense it is the people inside the hall that matter for they and their fellow activists could elect him as prime minister in a future contest.

I am no fan of Boris Johnson, but it was a clever and often (as one would expect) funny speech. He was even able to turn errors in reading his script into jokes. He could not be accused of disloyalty, pledging himself to every syllable of Theresa May's Florence speech, but still managed to carve out a distinctive position. He engaged in a lot of Jeremy Corbyn bashing, but it was his criticisms of his successor as London mayor, Sadiq Khan, that went down best in the hall.

He piled into the mood of pessimism, singling out the Financial Times (and by implication The Economist). His distinctive Brexit narrative centred around the role in the world that a global Britain could play, although in my view that involved some exaggeration of Britain's importance and the extent to which the UK is liked internationally.

His message was that Britain should 'seize the opportunities' of Brexit. No doubt he will seize any opportunity that presents itself of becoming prime minister for ambition is never far below the surface. There is nothing wrong with ambition, provided it is ambition to achieve things beyond personal advancement.