Mayor Boris goes house hunting on his new salary

Is Boris Johnson, the newly elected Tory mayor of London, planning to celebrate his new job by climbing a few rungs up the property ladder? According to a report in the Daily Mail, Johnson has been discreetly investigating the possibilities of buying a six-bedroom villa in Canonbury, Islington, just down the road from his present, more modest residence.

The house he has set his sights on is currently owned by Professor Colin McCabe, who teaches English at East Anglia University and was, until recently, a staunch Labour Party supporter. Indeed, at the weekend he hosted a 60th birthday party for Labour MP Denis MacShane. The price tag for the property is £3m.

Johnson is well able to afford the move – his mayoral salary is £137,579, and this is topped up by earnings from his column for the Daily Telegraph, reputedly £250,000 per year. He has also, like many others, benefited from the massive escalation in house prices in the last 10 years; during the mayoral election campaign he declared that his current home was worth "shedloads of money". About £1m is the local agents' estimate.

Says a friend of Johnson. "Boris is keen to move to a more spacious house without having to disrupt his children's schooling." And he'll be still be within easy cycling range of City Hall.