BoJo and Wee Dougie's sister hit Bottler where it hurts the most - his funny bone
BORIS Johnston may be Mayor of London but he remains for the time being the Honourable Member for Henley and, as such, he walked into the House of Commons to sit behind Tory leader David Cameron just as Gordon Brown was to start the 30 minutes of agony of PMQs.
How the Conservatives cheered BoJo, and to be fair to him, the Prime Minister actually congratulated BoJo. But for the rest of the session, Bottler Brown was so ill-prepared for the barrage of questions that the Speaker had to come to his rescue.
Gordon Brown is not going to resign as Prime Minister. And the Labour Party is not about to commit fratricide. So the only way out of the torture of occupying 10 Downing Street is to call a General Election now and scramble back to his Scottish hillside overlooking Kirkcaldy and the River Forth and ponder why he's been such a calamity.
(When Nick Clegg asks questions of Bottler in the Commons, the PM hits back with a quote for Chris Hulne, his rival for the Lib Dem leadership: They don't call you Calamity Clegg for nothing. Given the pounding taken by Brown, he'll never be able to use the term `calamity' again).
You could sense that Brown had his mind more on the reversal of the cannabis policy, knowing that would please the Daily Mail and its readers. Yes it will, but too little, too late from a loser.
Throughout the 30 minutes, Cameron looked very pleased with himself. Justly so, after last week's results nationwide and particularly in London. He demanded to know what Mr Brown had meant when he said he'd "listen" to the message from voters.
Did it mean he would now halt post office closures, end the early release scheme for prisoners and compensate low paid workers who'd been hit by the abolition of the 10p tax rate? If not, then it was an empty promise.
Bottler replied that the Tories were trying to spend money they did not have. He insisted there was a black hole in their spending plans and no amount of "slick salesmanship" could obscure the fact that there is no substance in everything the Conservatives said.
But it was his friend and colleage the Labour leader in the Scottish Parliament - and sister of International Development Secretary Wee Dougie - who has landed him with yet another headache. Wendy Alexander decided that the aftermath of Labour's worst local election results for a generation was a good time to change Labour's policy and call for an immediate referendum on Scottish independence.
Did she tell No 10 in advance? It appears not, leaving Bottler to insist that she did not call for such a vote when everyone journalist and Scottish voter darn well knows she did.
When you're in a hole, dig deep and make yourself look even more a figure of fun than you actually are.