Boris storms back to the Commons as he wins seat on wedding anniversary
BORIS JOHNSON stormed back into the Commons after a sevenyear absence with a comfortable win in Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
After the result was declared — at 4.30 on the morning of his wedding anniversary — Mr Johnson said it had been “an amazing night for the Conservatives... a remarkable turnaround”. He will now spend a year in the roles of backbench MP and Mayor of London, just as his Labour predecessor Ken Livingstone did between 2000 and 2001.
Mr Johnson, who won 50.2 per cent of the vote, pledged to see out his term as Mayor, insisting there was “a huge amount still to be done. We’ve got to make sure Crossrail 2 is properly embedded and... do all the other things in London we’ve got to do.”
He is widely expected to take a senior Cabinet role in a new Tory administration, possibly in charge of national infrastructure, once his second term at City Hall finishes next May. He immediately pledged to join neighbouring MP, Labour’s John McDonnell, in “lying down in front of those bulldozers” to stop a third Heathrow runway being built.
Mr Johnson fought off 12 rivals, including the Monster Raving Loony Party. In his acceptance speech at Brunel University in Uxbridge, he said: “I think [voters] have decisively rejected oldfashioned and outdated politics of division and it is clear to me the people of this country want us to go forward with sensible, moderate policies that this Conservative Party has produced over the past five years.” Sipping at a can of Red Bull, he said David Cameron had “pulled the most colossal rabbit out of the hat”.
The Tory “blond bombshell”, 50, first elected an MP in 2001, last sat in the Commons in 2008 as MP for Henley but quit to stand for Mayor. He had been tipped as a likely next Tory leader, in the event of Mr Cameron failing to win a majority.
Today he rejected suggestions that his return to Westminster boosts the odds of him becoming prime minister, saying it was as likely as his being reincarnated as an olive. He said: “My chances are still in olive or baked bean territory, maybe even Rice Krispies.”
He said Ed Miliband had moved Labour to the Left “and left the field open for a sensible centre-Right party to develop policies that are for the good of everybody in the country”. Labour’s Chris Summers said voters fell for the “cult of celebrity”, electing “a show pony to replace a workhorse. Sir John Randall was a fantastic MP... and he is being replaced by someone who talks about endless hard work but I really doubt he will do any of that.”