Boris fumes over cigar case probe

Boris Johnson may be pulling ahead of Ken Livingstone in the polls - but he is fuming. The Tory candidate hoping to topple Livingstone in the upcoming mayoral election believes he is the subject of a dirty tricks campaign following Scotland Yard’s intervention over the 'theft' of a cigar case which Johnson took from the home of Saddam Hussein's deputy prime minister five years ago.

Johnson has never made any secret of the fact that he "trousered" the leather case in 2003 from the bombed-out home of Tariq Aziz, the urbane English-speaking minister who had surrendered to American forces 10 days earlier. Johnson justified his "souvenir" at the time, writing in the Daily Telegraph in May 2003, that "to take the cigar case of the deposed number two of a deposed tyrant was hardly the same as swiping a 2300BC bronze statue of a squatting Akkadian king."

He acknowledged: "It was still Aziz's property, surely, even if he was being detained at the pleasure of President Bush," before adding, "If there was one thing more noxious than his cigar smoke, it was the clouds of lying and obfuscation... He was a vain and conniving adjutant to terror, and I have temporarily taken his cigar case for safe keeping."

Yet Scotland Yard says it was only alerted in the past few days to Johnson's removal of the case. The Metropolitan Police art and antiques unit have written to Johnson asking that he return the object "which could be of cultural or historical significance to the Iraqis".

Meanwhile Johnson, who has called the investigation "a monumental waste of time", has jumped ahead of Livingstone in the polls for the first time. Published on Tuesday, a YouGov survey of more than 1,000 voters suggests that 44 per cent of Londoners intend to vote for Johnson, against 39 per cent for the current mayor. Only 12 per cent favour the Lib-Dem contender Brian Paddick.

The poll follows the leak of private Mori research showing 49 per cent for Livingstone and 47 per cent for Johnson. It looks like being London's closest mayoral fight yet when campaigning for the May 1 election begins in earnest on March 18.