Yeo, Johnson

As George W Bush might have put it.

I hope that Boris Johnson succumbs to the pressure to take an IQ test, and that he turns out to have a very high IQ. Then people might see what a load of hokum it is. They must already see that this supposedly amiable buffoon is in fact only one of those things. As some of us have been saying for years.

But, although at least one of them has since left over Syria, several prominent Labour commentators were inexplicably permitted to retain their party cards even after they had endorsed Johnson's bid for re-election. What says the National Executive Committee about that now?

Speaking of that august body, the Conservatives have no equivalent of it to grant or refuse endorsement of a local party's choice of parliamentary candidate. These days, it is impossible to imagine the NEC's approving the deselection of a sitting MP against his or her will.

But if Tim Yeo really were to be deselected, then all that his party could do would be to refuse to extend the Whip to his Tea Party replacement. That, therefore, would be what it would do: it would make absolutely clear that, even if elected, such a person would never receive the Conservative Whip.

And that, should he get in as an Independent, Yeo would receive the Whip if he asked for it, which he would. Not one penny piece would the national party spend on seeking to elect his opponent, and it would direct donors to his campaign fund instead. The same would apply to the others on any right-wing hit list, which obviously exists.