The decision of London MEP Syed Kamall to join the contenders to be the 2016 Tory mayoral candidate has, according to Conservative Home, made the contest “a lot more interesting.” Why? Because strong favourite Zac Goldsmith “stands on the party’s centre left” and will attract Green support, while Kamall “may have greater reach in the capital’s burgeoning ethnic minority communities.”

Anything else? At present, it look like a stroll to the Tory winning post for Goldsmith. Can Kamall compete with him at all? The case for him was made earlier this year by Cambridgeshire councillor Tom Hunt, who campaigned alongside him in 2014 as a European Parliament candidate. Hunt describes Kamall, who led the Tory Euro campaign and has been an MEP since 2005, as “a political heavyweight” who heads the third largest MEP grouping with considerable skill, can mobilise supporters on the ground and, whilst being a “conviction Conservative”, defies Conservative stereotype. He’s a Muslim whose father migrated from Guyana and became a bus driver. Hunt is confident that this background would help persuade significant numbers of Londoners to vote Tory for the first time in their lives. Kamall has a Big Society angle too. He describes “helping community-based projects tackling poverty and other social problems” as “one of my passions.”

Yes, he should add something to the first Conservative candidate hustings, scheduled for July 4. I can’t wait to receive my invitation. Kamall joins a field which now officially includes Goldsmith, along with Boris Johnson’s policing deputy Stephen Greenhalgh, senior Tory AM Andrew Boff and self-made businessman Ivan Massow. Former footballer Sol Campbell should get a mention too. There, that was it. New energy entrepreneur Michael Liebreich, a Transport for London board member who’d given serious consideration to mounting a bid, has now abandoned this and declared himself a Zac man.

Kamall may be the Tory with the least hopeless chance of thwarting Goldsmith, who has spent at least £50,000 securing the approval of his constituents to run for City Hall. This underlines that he’s not short of a few bob. His privileged background, Eton and all, has predictably been picked on by fellow mayoral hopefuls. But not all opponents think this a weakness. “I’m afraid people like a handsome posh boy,” says one Labour AM, despairingly. The bookmakers agree. One has made Goldsmith 2/1 favourite to win the mayoral election next May.