Constituency profile: Uxbridge and South Ruislip

IT IS not often that Boris Johnson, the floppy-haired Tory politician tipped as a potential future Prime Minister, is left tongue-tied.

But Chris Fernandes, 19, a voter in the London Mayor’s target seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip, claims that is what happened when he questioned ‘Bozza’, as he is known to friends and foes alike, about an infamous incident from his past, in a conversation which he says took place outside one of the area’s main shopping centres.

“I saw him yesterday when he was out here campaigning,” he says. “There were a lot of people around him, but I had to ask him about that rugby tackle.”

That particular challenge was back in 2006, when Chris was just 10, but the incident has gone down in Boris folklore.

Taking part in a charity England-versus-Germany football match, in front of 15,000 people, Mr Johnson accidentally passed the ball to a member of the opposition before attempting a rugby-style tackle to try to retrieve it.

What did the famously articulate Boris say when reminded of his behaviour? “He was a bit stuck for a moment about what to say and looked sheepish,” says Chris, but, he adds with a grin “then he just laughed it off”.

Chris, the conscientious local voter that he is, says he also talked to the would-be MP about getting the local train services improved.

So, will he back Boris? “Course I will,” he says. His friend Fraser Wallcott, 18, is similarly impressed. “He’s funny,” he says. “He doesn’t take himself too seriously. Though he can be serious if he wants to be.”

Many in the constituency appear bemused at the chaos that sweeps their streets when the Boris machine hits town. It has not gone unnoticed that David Cameron has suggested Mr Johnson could be one of his eventual successors inside Number 10.

“It would not do any harm to the area to have your MP in the top job, now would it?” says Diane Smith, a retired landlady.

Roger Paton, who works in university procurement and says he has lived in the area for 34 years, takes the opposite view: “What difference would it make?”

Nevertheless, he says, he’s supporting Boris, who has even inspired him to campaign in the election.

Perhaps surprisingly for a man looking for votes, Mr Johnson has not actually been spending that much time in the constituency he is standing for.

In part that’s because the seat is thought to be fairly safe for the Tories.

In fact, Mr Johnson has been spending just as much time in