ANOTHER day, another headline about our illustrious Mayor of London.

This time, Boris has been helped to stay in the headlines by his sister, Rachel, editor of long-running society magazine The Lady, who reckons their “hands-off” style of upbringing, coupled with a good smack when they were naughty, was responsible for their success, as well as that of two of their other siblings, now a Tory MP and a filmmaker.

Ms Johnson revealed how their allegedly “hard-up” parents left them to entertain themselves and took little interest in their education, with their father never attending a parents’ evening.

She wrote as a contributor to a forthcoming book, How Rude – Modern Manners Defined, that the siblings learned to be selfsufficient from a young age, even crossing borders alone aged ten and 11, and worked during the holidays, which taught them the value of money.

She describes an incident where, as a small child, she refused to cross the road, and her mother picked her up by her hair, to the distress of passers-by.

Call me cynical, but I reckon (Conservative) Boris’s success has a bit more to do with the fact he is both an old Etonian and a former member of Oxford University’s Bullingdon Club, just like (Conservative) Chancellor George Osborne and (Conservative) Prime Minister David Cameron.

This leads me to believe that Ms Johnson is perhaps prone to more than a little exaggeration on this topic, perhaps in the hope Boris (seen by many as a future PM) will be seen as less of an upper class twit who likes to play the fool, and as a more credible, three-dimensional leader who can relate to everyone from posh nobs to Joe Bloggs.

REPORTS of medical evidence that man flu does exist have reached Echo Towers. According to a press release that appeared in my inbox this week, you men are not making the most of a cold in order to get the lady in your life to run around after you as if you are a small and helpless puppy.

It said: “Man flu is an instant and debilitating disorder, which hits without warning, rendering healthy males completely listless and entirely incompetent at even the simplest of tasks.

“Due to genetic differences, women are immune from Man Flu.

“Symptoms of man flu (men) include: sneezing and coughing; hunger pains; losing the ability to see (except the television); losing the ability to walk (except to the fridge and back); losing the ability to do anything except groan in agony when observed by others; inability to visit the inlaws for the weekend.

“Symptoms of man flu (women) include: nothing at all.”