It is the least we can do. After 60 years on the throne she has proved the value of the monarchy in uniting the nation, and she has put the republicans to a spectacular rout. Yesterday the pages of supposedly Left-wing newspapers were dripping with royalist sentiment, and tear-sodden self-styled radical journalists were offering Go’-bless-yer-ma’am style apologies for their former belief in a presidential alternative.

In her 60 years on the throne she has seen the people of this country grow incomparably richer, healthier and (arguably) happier than they were in 1952. If we measure monarchical success by the growth in longevity or per capita GDP of her subjects, then she is the most successful monarch in history. The crowds on the banks this Sunday will have the best teeth of any generation of Britons; their barbecues will be furnished with the most exotic provender this nation has ever seen; their earholes will be stuffed with electronic devices of a sophistication and luxury that would have been unthinkable 60 years ago.

And in spite of the dismantling of the British Empire, they will be cavorting and gyrating in what is still the financial, artistic and cultural capital of the world. Yes, my friends, in its range and its accomplishment it is ever clearer that the age of the second Elizabeth is even greater than that of her closest rival, Victoria. Both queens served 60 years, and though it is conventional to say that Britain reached its imperial apogee under Victoria – and declined ever since – it is time for that judgment to be reversed. It is time for us Second Elizabethans to shrug off our inferiority complex. Let’s be proud of what we have done.

Take music. In the reign of the present Queen we have seen an inflorescence of popular music – the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the whole explosion of the Sixties and onwards – that put London at the centre of the world’s number one art form and knocked Gilbert and Sullivan (charming though they were) into a cocked hat. Or take architecture. I grant you that the Victorians were grand; they were ornate; they went for scale. But look at the Gherkin or the Shard or the rest of the skyline of modern London and you could hardly fault the architects of today’s Britain for their ambition.

Yes, the Victorians were industrious, and they made breakthroughs from which humanity still benefits, but the present generation of scientists and writers is no less industrious or successful. It was the Victorian Londoner Charles Babbage who devised the first scheme for the machine I am using; but it was another Londoner, Chingford-born Sir Jonathan Ive, who came up with the present magnificent design. Yes, Dickens is still a big noise in China; but is he really any bigger than J K Rowling?

And then there is the last great field of endeavour for which we venerate the Victorians – engineering, and transport infrastructure. Again and again we are taking them on and beating them. In the 60th year of Queen Elizabeth we are seeing an extraordinary surge of new stations, new river crossings, new air-conditioned Tube lines and trains that proceed without the need of a driver.

There is only one thing more that we need. When in 1965 the Havengore carried the body of Sir Winston Churchill from the Tower to Waterloo, they turned all the cranes in the pool of London, and bowed them in synchronised respect. Those cranes are now gone from London, and so are hundreds of thousands of jobs. It was that failure to invest in infrastructure, in the first part of the present Queen’s reign, which set London back and caused a period of relative decline.

We are now making up for that mistake, and helping to lay the foundations that will deliver growth and jobs for generations. But if sea travel was the 19th- and

20th-century mode, aviation is the way forward. This week we celebrate the river that enabled London’s astounding commercial success – and yet the potential of the river is not exhausted.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful, in the 60th year of Elizabeth, if the Government announced a final devastating retort to the Victorians and the creation of a 24-hour Thames estuary airport that lengthened London’s lead as the commercial capital of Europe?

It is the least we can do. After 60 years on the throne she has proved the value of the monarchy in uniting the nation, and she has put the republicans to a spectacular rout. Yesterday the pages of supposedly Left-wing newspapers were dripping with royalist sentiment, and tear-sodden self-styled radical journalists were offering Go’-bless-yer-ma’am style apologies for their former belief in a presidential alternative.

In her 60 years on the throne she has seen the people of this country grow incomparably richer, healthier and (arguably) happier than they were in 1952. If we measure monarchical success by the growth in longevity or per capita GDP of her subjects, then she is the most successful monarch in history. The crowds on the banks this Sunday will have the best teeth of any generation of Britons; their barbecues will be furnished with the most exotic provender this nation has ever seen; their earholes will be stuffed with electronic devices of a sophistication and luxury that would have been unthinkable 60 years ago.

And in spite of the dismantling of the British Empire, they will be cavorting and gyrating in what is still the financial, artistic and cultural capital of the world. Yes, my friends, in its range and its accomplishment it is ever clearer that the age of the second Elizabeth is even greater than that of her closest rival, Victoria. Both queens served 60 years, and though it is conventional to say that Britain reached its imperial apogee under Victoria – and declined ever since – it is time for that judgment to be reversed. It is time for us Second Elizabethans to shrug off our inferiority complex. Let’s be proud of what we have done.

Take music. In the reign of the present Queen we have seen an inflorescence of popular music – the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the whole explosion of the Sixties and onwards – that put London at the centre of the world’s number one art form and knocked Gilbert and Sullivan (charming though they were) into a cocked hat. Or take architecture. I grant you that the Victorians were grand; they were ornate; they went for scale. But look at the Gherkin or the Shard or the rest of the skyline of modern London and you could hardly fault the architects of today’s Britain for their ambition.

Yes, the Victorians were industrious, and they made breakthroughs from which humanity still benefits, but the present generation of scientists and writers is no less industrious or successful. It was the Victorian Londoner Charles Babbage who devised the first scheme for the machine I am using; but it was another Londoner, Chingford-born Sir Jonathan Ive, who came up with the present magnificent design. Yes, Dickens is still a big noise in China; but is he really any bigger than J K Rowling?

And then there is the last great field of endeavour for which we venerate the Victorians – engineering, and transport infrastructure. Again and again we are taking them on and beating them. In the 60th year of Queen Elizabeth we are seeing an extraordinary surge of new stations, new river crossings, new air-conditioned Tube lines and trains that proceed without the need of a driver.

There is only one thing more that we need. When in 1965 the Havengore carried the body of Sir Winston Churchill from the Tower to Waterloo, they turned all the cranes in the pool of London, and bowed them in synchronised respect. Those cranes are now gone from London, and so are hundreds of thousands of jobs. It was that failure to invest in infrastructure, in the first part of the present Queen’s reign, which set London back and caused a period of relative decline.

We are now making up for that mistake, and helping to lay the foundations that will deliver growth and jobs for generations. But if sea travel was the 19th- and

20th-century mode, aviation is the way forward. This week we celebrate the river that enabled London’s astounding commercial success – and yet the potential of the river is not exhausted.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful, in the 60th year of Elizabeth, if the Government announced a final devastating retort to the Victorians and the creation of a 24-hour Thames estuary airport that lengthened London’s lead as the commercial capital of Europe?

Decrying the attitude of a BBC art critic, who told him the new ArcelorMittal Orbit structure at the Olympic Park in Stratford, east London, should be “bigger” and “free”, Mr Johnson said: “There you have everything that is wrong with the BBC and with this country.”

Speaking of his recent election campaign, Mr Johnson says: “I sometimes felt that my chief opponent was the local BBC news – the prevailing view of Beeb newsrooms is, with honourable exceptions, statist, corporatist, defeatist, anti-business, Europhile and, above all, overwhelmingly biased to the Left.”

Mark Thompson, who is due to step down from his role in the autumn after eight years, has admitted the corporation was guilty of bias in the past.

In an interview with the New Statesman in 2010, he said: “In the BBC I joined 30 years ago, there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people’s personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the Left … now it is a completely different generation.”

A BBC spokeswoman said: “BBC News is committed to impartiality and we reject Boris Johnson’s assertions of bias.

“Our approach means asking difficult questions of politicians, businesses and unions alike.

“People with trenchant views often find this process uncomfortable but our audience expects us to challenge those in power, as well as those who seek it.”

Harriet Harman, shadow culture, media and sport secretary, said Mr Johnson should “keep out of it”.

She said: “The importance of the BBC to Britain today is hard to overstate, and it is so trusted because it reports politics impartially. The whole point of the director general of the BBC is that they are neutral.”

“Mr President,” I said, in tones of calculated self-deprecation, “how come England hasn’t won the Fifa World Cup since I was two? France, Germany, Italy, Spain — all our European rivals, but not England. What’s wrong with us?” Blatter figuratively stroked the white cat on his lap, and replied that it was very simple. The trouble with England was the Premiership, he said. You import all these players from around the world. It means that the local talent never gets the same attention, or the same investment. That’s the problem with English football, he said, and then I found that my time was up and that the blonde Ukrainian six-footers were heading me to the door.

I was much struck by his analysis, and relayed it immediately to one of my colleagues, an ardent Lefty and lifelong Arsenal fan. I wondered whether there could be a smidgen of truth in what Blatter suggested. Perhaps all these intergalactic imports — Brazilians, Nigerians, Russians, Croats, you name it — were depressing the growth of our autochthonous talent. Perhaps we should have some rule — as Blatter suggested — to exclude these superstars, or to limit their numbers, in order to protect and bring on the native English players.

Oh, ah, I said, and accepted the wisdom of his judgment. I have been thinking about this argument over the past few weeks and months, because our number one priority as a society is to boost growth — and get people into work. Some readers may have been following the London elections, and will have gathered that we have fantastic plans to invest in transport, housing and regeneration schemes — projects that will cumulatively help create 200,000 jobs. We are building a platform now for a more successful and prosperous city in 10 and 20 years’ time: high-quality family homes, a better Tube network, new river crossings, orbital rail; and we are addressing the immediate economic problems by getting Londoners into work.

The trouble is — as many people have pointed out to me at street corners — that London’s formidable job-creating powers do not always seem to involve the creation of jobs for native Londoners. Go into any coffee shop and talk to the staff, listen to the voices on the building sites — and you will see how the city is working as a magnet for talent and energy from outside the UK, many from the countries that have recently acceded to the EU.

There are plenty of people who take a Sepp Blatter-ish line about this phenomenon. There are some who say the immigrants are simply too talented and energetic. I was discussing the problem with a group of journalists not long ago, when a Guardian man — a kindly and distinguished fellow — started heckling me. It wasn’t fair, he suggested, that indigenous Londoners should be asked to go toe to toe “with Polish graduates”. I see his point. I see the unfairness.

But we are forced to ask what is the alternative, and what is the best way forward for the young Londoners who are not finding the work that they need. I suppose we could try to protect them by constructing Blatteresque barriers and quotas — though we would almost certainly find that such moves were against EU law. But surely the best approach now is to look at every stage in the chain of causation that results in a young Londoner losing out, in the jobs market, to a contestant from abroad. We need to hear an honest and unflinching account from the employers: just why is it that so many individual recruitment decisions seem to go against young Londoners?

Why do immigrant workers seem to look at a job in McDonald’s or Starbucks as a stepping stone, while some who were born here apparently regard it as a dead end? Is the problem just to do with pay and conditions? Is it really true that immigrants will work harder for less? Is there really a difference in the “work ethic”, or is that an urban myth? One of my first priorities as re-elected mayor is to analyse and expose the roots of this problem.

I have already launched an inquiry into education in London, and we will now extend this to include all the failures of the labour market — all the reasons Londoners are not getting the jobs they need. We will simultaneously expand our apprenticeship programme by a colossal 250,000 — to give young people that vital experience of competing in a workplace. So far, 84 per cent have gone on to full-time jobs. But should we go for the Blatter solution, and haul up the drawbridge?

Against illegals, yes. Against talent, no. In football as in the economy at large, you don’t make people more competitive by excluding the competition.

Dave was too exhausted even to feel angry. Betrayed by his own people – after all he’d done for them! Just as he was trying to take in the news, his phone chirped, sounding out the opening notes of London Calling.

He stared at the screen, then gave a short bark of laughter. “It’s from Boris,” he announced. “It says ‘Et tu, Oxfordshire?’”

“Nice of him to try to cheer you up,” ventured George.

“I’m not sure that’s the plan,” said Dave. The phone chirped again. “ ’Aegroto dum anima est, spes est’. What does that mean?”

Michael spoke up. “As long as a sick person has breath, there is hope.”

“Great,” said Dave. “He’s not only taunting me – he’s taunting me in Latin. What’s next? ‘Sic transit gloria mundi’? Or maybe ‘Remember, Caesar, that thou art mortal’?”

“No,” said George, peering at his own phone, which had just buzzed. “’Ut sementem feceris, ita metes’.”

“’As ye reap, so shall ye sow’,” muttered Michael, without being asked.

“Come on, Dave,” said Eric, nudging over the remnants of a platter of sandwiches. “Illegitimi non carborundum and all that.”

“Eh?” said Dave.

“Don’t let the b—— grind you down.”

“Quite,” said George, before inspecting his phone again. “And on the plus side, it looks like Boris has run out of Latin.”

“Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” said Dave.

“Not entirely,” said George. “He’s asking me to send him the measurements for the Downing Street curtains.”

Deep within Dave’s soul, a defiant spark flickered into life. He’d be dashed if he was going to take this from Boris, of all people. He’d prove he was still the Alpha Etonian.

“Right, that’s it,” he said. “Make a note – first thing tomorrow, I want plans on my desk for a fightback. I want an outline of the reshuffle. I want a new draft of the Queen’s Speech that’s tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. I want Abu Qatada on the first plane out, no matter how long he has to queue at Heathrow. I want next week to be a fresh start.”

“Good plan, chief,” said Eric, loyally. “It might even distract people from watching Rebekah and Andy at Leveson.”

“Oh yes,” said Dave. “That.” As silence descended again, he slumped mournfully in his chair, and reached for the wilted egg and cress.