There goes the neighbourhood. Why Boris could never survive in my Camberwell manor

I only found out last weekend that he’d moved into the parish. At first I didn’t believe it, Boris Johnson living in my hood? But it turns out the wannabe prime minister was actually shacked up in SE5 and I was unwittingly sharing a postcode with him.

I know the street well where Carrie Symonds has been hosting her boyfriend. I used to live literally around the corner, almost close enough to hear a humdinger of a row. Her gaff overlooks the park where I used to take my small daughter, there are tennis courts which makes it sound posher than it is and once upon a time an albino squirrel jumped from tree to tree.

The area is mixed and I mean this in the best possible way. Most of London is mixed, apart from the places that aren’t; the gated communities and the enclaves of Georgian terraces in smart areas where the riff-raff were priced out years ago. But a great deal of London can be well-heeled one moment and distinctly average the next.

Camberwell is a mix of gorgeous Georgian houses and burnt out sofas (whether red-wine stained or not). I have lived in the area for 37 years in various properties – from spare rooms (once sleeping on a shelf in someone’s basement) to a 13th-floor council flat – before meeting my partner who was already on the property ladder. Phew.

For many years I passed where Boris now lives every day and I still regularly drive by now. The row of houses is impressive, some are pillared and nicely done up, some aren’t, there are still one or two with graffiti on the outside walls and a few are what I call a bit “blanket up at the window”.

Somehow I don’t think Boris is used to this kind of neighbourhood. Yes there are pockets of genteel, but they are interspersed with real life, Camberwell has an art school and King’s College Hospital, it is also home to the Maudsley, the largest mental health training institution in the country. Hence there are art students, key workers and a scattering of possibly the more rackety showbiz types – oh, and there was a time when I couldn’t get on a bus without bumping into the notorious gangland criminal “Mad” Frankie Fraser.

I love the place with all my heart but I realise it’s not for everyone: it’s urban yet overrun with foxes; ambulances and police cars scream constantly; it’s what some people might call colourful, meaning slightly bonkers.

As we all now know, Boris moved into Camberwell to live with Symonds, who took exception to Boris spilling wine over her sofa last week before the pair’s now-infamous “plate-smashing row”, which was caught on tape by neighbours. The rights and wrongs of recording neighbours through the wall has been much discussed but the fact remains that Boris possibly doesn’t know how to behave in a shared dwelling. He was probably at Oxford the last time he had a communal staircase. If you live in a house that has been divided into flats, your house is not just your house, it belongs to other people too and different rules apply.

For starters, I wonder where he leaves his bike? I once lived in a flat where the ground floor residents refused to allow me to leave my chunky two-wheeler in the hallway and I’d have to lug the thing around an awkwardly shaped stairwell up to my flat.

To be honest, as soon as I found out that Boris was now a local resident I thought that we’d at least get a decent cycle lane from Camberwell Green up to the Elephant and Castle. That particular stretch of road is crying out for one and it’s the least he can do, but so far there’s not a hint of it and I don’t suppose he ever thought he’d be around long enough to bother.

Camberwell just isn’t very Boris, it belongs to the London Borough of Southwark, which is staunchly Labour. Camberwell and Peckham’s MP for as far back as I can remember is the thoroughly decent Harriet Harman. However, it’s also, very evidently, a Remain constituency. More than two-thirds of residents voted that way in the referendum and there are plenty of EU flags fluttering about the neighbourhood now to prove it. There’s also a healthy Lib Dem vote locally, but it’s a rare sight to see a Tory sticker anywhere.

Maybe this is why he hasn’t got round to applying for a residents’ parking permit and is content to allow his windscreen to fill up with tickets?

To me this was the most telling part of the ugly row debacle, the fact that he can’t be bothered to sort out his own parking. Oh come on, this is sloppy. This, as much as anything else, bodes badly for his leadership campaign. If he can’t get a parking permit sorted, which let’s face it is pretty basic housekeeping, how can we trust him to look after the entire country?

In the meantime, I just hope he’s bought Carrie a new sofa.