Why is Mayor Boris talking to Brocket?

Since being released from prison in 1998 after serving half a five-year sentence for fraud – he cut up a number of his Ferrari sports cars and buried them in the ground of his stately home and then claimed the insurance - Lord Brocket (pictured) has kept determinedly to the straight and narrow. That said, some might be surprised to learn that he has formed a close friendship with the new London Mayor Boris Johnson, and that this, according to him, could lead to him being given some sort of role at City Hall.

"I had dinner with Boris a couple of weeks ago and we discussed a whole raft of ideas I have about improving the transport system," Brocket reveals in today’s Daily Telegraph. Johnson appeared to have been receptive to his ideas because he has now invited the peer to visit City Hall and amplify his thoughts. Says Brocket, who is, of course, an Old Etonian: "His people want me to come in and make a presentation on some issues."

Although there is little on the peer's CV to suggest an aptitude for politics – nefarious activities aside, he is best known for appearing on the TV programme I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here - he does come from a political family. His late father was a member of the pro-Nazi Anglo-German Fellowship in the 1930s and a few months before the outbreak of World War Two attended Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday in Berlin. There is no suggestion, of course, that Boris's friend has any such sympathies.