“What ho,” said Boris cheerily, running one hand through his hair to achieve that trademark just-woke-up-in-a-haystack look.

“How’s tricks then?”

“Spiffing. Jolly good, actually. Good, good, good, good, good. Good. We’re doing a spot of canvassing.”

“Yes, mind if I lurk in the background?” “Heavens no. Lurk away. Got to be done.”

It is impossible, when tailing Boris Johnson — Conservative incumbent for Henley, television personality, novelist, Spectator Editor, former Shadow Arts Minister subplot character in the Kimberly Quinn-David Blunkett imbroglio — to escape the impression that one has become trapped in a P. G. Wodehouse novel. Boris was on his best Bertie Wooster form yesterday, surrounded by an air of calculated vagueness, chaotic hilarity and canny, halfdisguised ambition.

On the outskirts of Henley we entered a small enclave of council houses, where Charlie Spires was standing on a ladder, cleaning his caravan with a toothbrush. “You’re cleaning your caravan with a toothbrush,” Boris said brightly.

Mr Spires, a man with enormous white sideburns, eyed Boris as if he had landed from another planet. “Will you be voting Conservative?” wondered Boris.

“No way, Jacko,” said Mr Spires.

“Right-ho,” said Boris. “Jolly good. Carry on toothbrushing.”

As we departed Boris observed to nobody in particular: “I think that went VERY well.” Then he started humming (Is This the Way to) Amarillo. Then he did some knee bends. “Bumf, I’ve run out of bumf. Bring more bumf.” An aide brought more leaflets.

Everyone knows Boris. Even the voters who don’t exactly know who he is know that they have seen him somewhere. Many, when they see his distinctive crumpled, tousled form on the doorstep, simply start laughing.

Henley is granite Tory territory but Boris Johnson has a popular following here that goes beyond politics, to a far more powerful and important factor in British life: celebrity.

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