It’s Tory conference week, and once again London Mayor Boris Johnson will be the crowd-pleaser. Every Tory generation has one, and at the moment, Bojo is it.

The Slog is on the record from two years ago (when it was nby) as naming Boris Johnson and Harriet Harman as the two greatest dangers to British Liberal Democracy. Peter Hain wouldn’t say that, but it suits his book to find fascists in the flower-bed. I have always maintained that the real potential dictators are already in senior national politics. And I have always said that Boris wants to lead the Conservative Party.

What Mr Johnson does is fulfil the Tory role of barrack-room lawyer to the rank and file. And he does it better than most, because he is a consummate actor who can appear both lovable and cute as well as tough and realistic. Watch Bojo in action with London voters, and you will see a natural political genius at work.

He is very dangerous because first, he doesn’t respect the electorate: he thinks they’re grockles who need to be herded about. And second, he doesn’t like being crossed or held to account. Watch Bojo in a heavy Assembly debate, and the monster rears its head rather too often for my liking.

But at the minute, the Coalition in general – and the Cameroons in particular – are playing right into Boris Johnson’s hands. It’s not that one can’t see a sort of general financial policy-direction and some signs of serious action; rather, it is that on some of the specific policy stuff the Government is simply doing what Governments do these days: press on with an agenda without listening to anyone outside the bubble. I’m no longer sure which is worse – taking on board the bubble and squeak, or ignoring the real world outside the opaque, hermetically sealed Westminster hot-air balloon.

For example, child benefit for the well off is to go – hurrah. But why wait until 2013? There will be reasons why, I’ve no doubt: but look across the Irish Sea and you will quickly see that the reasons aren’t good enough. Free prescriptions and fuel allowances for well-heeled pensioners like me? Ridiculous – chuck it on the bonfire now, not in 2013.

Then there are Osborne’s cuts, which display a worrying inability to tell cost from investment. I’m not just talking economic futures here, but social ones too. Cutting back the already insolvent CPS is a recipe for further breakdowns in the criminal justice system, and more voter loss of faith in the police/law and order dimension. 

Theresa May at the Home Office lavishes praise on Harmanite Equality madness, dithers on immigration, and rolls over on the EU arrest warrant legislation. Hague spends a few weeks with the FCO, after which it becomes clear that he and the Prime Minister are secretly quite pro the EU trading partners who are about to go to Hell in a bucket. And Osborne goes to Brussels in order to capitulate on the pre-approval of UK Budget proposals.

Research is readily available to demonstrate to Tory strategists (as it was in the General Election) that pc, law and order, EU madness and immigration are right at the centre of the mainstream voter’s radar – be they supporters of the Left or Right. But Cameron pushes blithely on, saying he will “never leave the centre ground”. Well, he’s going to find it very lonely there as time goes on.

This piece isn’t a plea for lurching to the Right, it’s a warning that Big v Little and Privileged v Vulnerable are becoming the real centre-ground of UK politics.

George Osborne will today (I’m told) vow to break the dominance of the City in the British economy, as he seeks to balance tough rhetoric on the deficit with the need to sustain future growth in all parts of the UK. The chancellor will tell the Conservative conference that he does not want “growth confined to one corner of our country or one sector of our economy”. He will conclude that Britain should never again hitch “its entire fortunes to the City of London”.

This is what the Draper says, but it bears no relation at all to his actions thus far. He hasn’t come down on the bank bonuses like a ton of bricks, and he hasn’t sought to diversify capital-raising away from the Bourse. He hasn’t declared war on Sir Humphey pension pocket-lining, he didn’t oppose on of the City nonsense when he was in Opposition, and he didn’t give Vince Cable public support when he thoroughly deserved it. As murmurings of further bank bailout emerge this morning, Osborne’s reaction to them will be interesting…..perhaps predictable.

Again, this isn’t about Left and Right: it’s about Establishment privileges and proving that you want a good clean game on a level playing-field some distance away from Eton.

Fear of radicalism has been endemic in the Tory Party for nearly a decade now.  Writing in the FT this morning, bone-dry-turned-wet-through Michael Portillo writes illogically that a harder stance by the Tories in the May election this year wouldn’t have produced a better result, because with that stance in 2001 and 2005, the Party got massacred.

It’s a risible argument from a bloke who, let’s face it, enjoys the company of Dianne Abbot, one of Britain’s highest-profile hypocrites. Things have moved on since 1997-2007, Michael: Labour screwed up, Blair has gone, there’s a global depression about to dive downwards again….and the eurozone is a disaster area of corrupt spin and fantasy strategies. Had the Conservatives adopted a fiercely anti-EU, anti-Bank, pro-small entrepreneur, pro radical tax and welfare reform programme, the Party would’ve cantered to a clear majority.

The real bottom line of Tory failure in May is that faced with incompetence, delusion and an electoral piece of anti-matter as Prime Minister on the Government benches, the Conservative vote inched forward a pathetic 3%. We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Hague and Letwin for their personal and highly-skilled dedication to rescuing the country from LabLib disaster – and we always will. But the Tories are working on the assumption that there is no radical alternative to their tepid version of anti-Stateism. They are wrong.

A repositioned UKIP with broader policies and better leaders (the election is under way as I write) would be a serious threat. Again, look at the numbers: in 23 constituencies, UKIP robbed the Tories of victory. In Morley, they enabled the survival of the Beast Balls. Had not Farage made an utter Horlicks of his Buckingham election campaign, they might even have had a Parliamentary seat. When Cameron called the Ukippers ‘BNP Lite’ before the General Election, he probably handed them 50,000 votes. It was a crass remark.

But the other threat has always been there: the demon in dishevelled clothing, Boris Johnson. Bojo is a populist, a Party favourite, and a powerful Mayor. He could easily fail to be re-elected, of course – but that might make him even more of a future Parliamentary thorn for Cameron.

Most political commentators at the moment are not factoring in just how badly – and traumatically –  world events outside the Bubble are going to crash head-on with the best-laid plans of Coalition mice in the years to come. When that happens, Boris Johnson may very well appear like The Man head and shoulders above those mice. And nobody should rule out the possibility that BJ might even defect in some form himself.

This one isn’t going away. It is one for future-watchers to keep an eye on.