Dear Austin,

I hear the quip about the bendy buses during my resounding speech to the Conservative Party annual conference in Birmingham earlier this month did not exactly go down too well with you. Sorry about that, but you must understand I have to look after my reputation as the new Tory darling and Prime Minister-in-waiting with a penchant for a good laugh and some honest fun.

They tell me you too sometimes resort to such temptations. I couldn’t hold my ample stomach when a good, conservative friend from Malta recounted to me your description to the local media of an important party meeting as only “going in a for a pee”. I would have loved to have been the author of that wonderful piece of political wisdom, but here the media are a lot more sensitive and they would have crucified me.

Is it true only the Opposition rags have given you some stick over it? If indeed it is, then if Hilary Clinton wants to be President of Malta, then, why not; I can always be Prime Minister there if I don’t make it here. Are there enough sports facilities and venues where we can one day host the Olympics? I’ll let you have the application template. London has had its fair share of the Games (1948 and 2012), so I can’t see it getting a third one, in my lifetime at least.

To go back to the bendy buses, though, I have to admit I was being sincere about feeling elated that the damned monsters on wheels stuck together with chewing gum have been taken off the London roads. Maybe I shouldn’t have embarrassed you in that way, especially since we happen to belong to the same ideology that caters for the rich and the privileged and to hell, and possibly to a quick pee (guffaws), with the rest.

To say the deal was a load off the stomach would be an under-estimation. One has to go slightly lower than that, I’m afraid, so perhaps I should say my butt today feels less constricted and restrained.

How’s it all going, really, on your major roads and pretty little streets? I know you said, in your quick official and officious reply (didn’t mind it, mate, cross my heart, I know how it goes between same-colour governments) to my comment, that you are extremely happy and that the bendy buses are not really clogging the streets of Malta. It makes me happy as well to hear that, and I don’t worry about eating humble pie. Don’t you remember how I got stuck on a highwire in the Olympic area during the Games and I simply laughed it off by saying I wanted to get a good birdseye view of things? Oh, how the media lapped it up.

But, then, I have other contacts on your Island (no, this Franco Debono has got nothing to do with them) who insist that the bendy buses have not been taken too much to heart by the populace. Well, they can vent their frustrations on your famous pastizzi which, I am delighted to learn, are now on sale and doing well somewhere in London. Must try them, one day – if work matters permit, of course. But I must make one point very clear: we just don’t want t hose bendies back, OK?

It was disturbing to hear that some of your local councils now want the bendies off the streets of their villages and towns. Between you and me, I can’t blame them. How you so cleverly convinced the Arriva people to use them on those twisting little alleyways you call streets is, to me, beyond comprehension. My only preoccupation is that their opposition could prove to be contagious, especially amongst Labour-run councils which, I hear, are in the majority over there. Sorry, but I have to say it again: we just do not want the bendies back, OK?

Once this is loud and clear enough, I don’t see why we can’t remain friends. Perhaps there are other things you want from London? We have a surplus of immigrants you could use as drivers. London residents were not happy with the way they navigated the bendies, but I’m sure you wouldn’t mind the skirmishes, the close-shaves, and the congestion they could cause. After all, they tell me you’ve already had your fair share of those since your much-maligned (I know, I know, it’s those loonies on the Centre-Left) public transport reform.

By the way, have you had any problems with the double-deckers, I wonder? I know that many of our old ones have been sold to Maltese enterprises. The trend here is to phase them out and replace them with modern fleets of one-deck, environment-friendly vehicles that would have no problems on the streets of old London Town. Again, how are your transport people coping with them, given your streets are much tighter, smaller, and much more difficult to manoeuvre through?

You amaze me, you Maltese. However do you politicians manage to get away with it? I pray, do tell me. You may no longer have leadership ambitions, dear Austin, but I still do. So I need to learn from you. How does one go about hoodwinking so many people for so long, even clobbering them with unwanted bendy buses, and still expecting them to be grateful for your fallacies and, of course, those of your favourite consultants? For all my Etonian education, I’m truly fascinated.

I heard you have also lumbered your seemingly dumb nation with a bridge that doesn’t get you anywhere, a new parliament you don’t need, a roofless theatre, a priceless incision for a city gate, and now – and this takes the prize – even an ambassador to nowhereland. Jesus, you must belong to a Cabinet of geniuses. Have you struck oil or something? Watch it if it’s anywhere near Gozo. The Gozitans could one day claim it, as the Scots are now doing with ours while they seek independence.

Must close here, I’m afraid. I hope we are still mates. Do keep me updated with the progress of your (thank goodness they’re no longer mine, ha ha!) bendy buses. I’m always game for a good laugh.

Yours fraternally,

Boris Johnson

Mayor of London.