IT is a dangerous game, slagging off a large chunk of your party’s grass roots voters but Boris Johnson was recklessly playing it this week.

He asserted that the anti-HS2 lobby’s protests on the grounds of the environmental damage the scheme would cause was, ahem, ‘rubbish’ (to paraphrase his exact term, which, in fact, rhymes with bullocks), adding, no doubt, to his list of outspoken soundbites.

Instead, it’s a smokescreen for their real concern, he said – the impact on their house prices.

It’s a peculiar one though, and not one which quite qualifies as a Boris gaffe – he knew exactly what he was saying.

And he probably has a point – many whose homes will be affected by the scheme will happily jump at every possible chance they can use to derail the plan. It could be that lots are slightly less concerned with the fate of the ‘great crested grebe’, as Boris put it, than they claim.

But why shouldn’t they play the environmental card? What is wrong with using every method at their disposal to achieve their aim of bringing the scheme to a standstill?

And even if, truth be told, the environmental impact is not the prime concern of all protesters, the damage to wildlife and the surroundings is a legitimate worry.

There are plenty around these parts whose house prices will not be affected one jot by the HS2 scheme but who are still fiercely opposed to the plan – largely because of the impact it will have on the Chiltern AONB.

And many campaign groups are raising the concerns, meanwhile, because that is what they do – the likes of the Chiltern Conservation Board exists, in part, to fight these sorts of battles.

But what is most odd about Boris’ comments – certainly the extreme nature of them – is that they serve no purpose but to annoy many of the people who have voted for his party for years, certainly in this Tory heartland of Bucks. He could have made the same point in far softer terms, and ones less likely to wind up the voters. He is still a speculative candidate to be the next Tory leader, after all. Probably best not to accuse his future voters of being self-serving fibbers.

He may have always courted with the image of the buffoon, but it has emerged over the last few years, certainly, that there is more to him that the posh twit image he once presented to the world on the likes of Have I Got News For You.

Of course, he has every right to offer frank views – and it certainly makes a refreshing change from so many of our politicians who struggle to get a meaningful sentence out of their mouths for fear that they will get ripped to shreds by Jeremy Paxman (or their own party). Certainly it livens up the political news a bit.

I’m sure, come the general election, the Conservatives still have every chance of riding high with a comfortable majority around Bucks – but, by treating its electorate’s concerns in such a cavalier way, it is no surprise a party like UKIP, regardless of what you think of it, is causing the Tories a headache at the moment. It is a savvy move for that party to be jumping on the anti-HS2 bandwagon and comments like Boris made surely risk helping them build more steam and sacrificing members of what was once the Tory faithful.