It was, naturally, the Tories who labelled themselves "the stupid party", a name that assorted liberals and leftists quickly hijacked and proceeded to trot out at every opportunity as a supposed insult.

Tories per se were stupid, which suited us Tories just fine, for like an Irishman at a horse fair or a Texan at the poker table, we instinctively knew the profits to be gained from the illusion of stupidity.

We would act dim until it came to counting out the money, and then we would act lucky. Let the socialists consider themselves to be upon the intellectual high ground so long as we can turn a tidy profit among more congenial company in the gutter.

All of which brings me to Boris Johnson, who, in a move bold even by his standards, will unofficially launch his campaign to be the next PM at the service and dinner to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Pop this Saturday.

(For the non-Old Etonians among you, the Pop referred to here is a society best described as a "well-heeled Stasi" rather than a relatively recent musical genre, and all you really need to know is that Boris and I were elected members by our peers and Dave was not, and even in his mid-forties this still infuriates the Prime Minister.)

The thrust of Boris's speech, of which I have seen a copy, will be that we are at our best when we are at our brainiest. He will deliver, in Greek
and mentioning no names, an excoriating attack on the dark arts of public relations, culminating in the devastating punchline that, should you be bored enough to google "PR" and "intellectual", your computer will deliver only one answer: “Sir Tim Bell". Reverting to English, Boris will launch into a strident defence of elitism.

He will call on his school chums to release the shackles that have restrained them for too long and ask them to trumpet the cause.

Come, all ye aristocrats and hedge-fund managers, to the aid of the party unashamedly run by the elite for the elite! We have nothing to lose but our natural capacity for shyness. It is those who were bred to be Great who must take responsibility for keeping this country Great. And so on and so forth.

Underneath all the Johnsonian bluster there will, as ever, be a very serious point. The mayor is setting out the debate that must take place within the Tory party once we have rid ourselves of the turbulent Liberal Democrats.

It will pitch the micromanager Osborne against the grandiose Boris, the economist happiest meddling within the Treasury against a philosopher itching to bestride the world stage.

It will be our decision whether to be Little Englanders or global leaders. We can be late capitalists or early elitists. And I wager that, when
the history of this so far benighted century comes to be written, Boris's Pop speech will be seen to be pivotal.