HAS Boris blown it for Brexit? asks LOUISE ALLONBY 

As the latest polls reveal the Remain camp pulling significantly ahead of those who would have us out of the EU in the June 23 referendum, one can't help wondering about the former London mayor's effect on the outcome. 

Nigel Farage aside, Boris Johnson is by far the most well-known face of the Leave campaign. Like Mr Farage, Boris is one of life's characters. 

A scruffy, bumbling, intellectual, jolly good egg, straight out of the pages of PG Wodehouse. 

Unlike Mr Farage, Boris (so popular, he is universally known by his Christian name alone) has managed to retain his "I'm mad, me" persona without being in the least divisive. 

Until the daft beggar decided to do a Ken Livingstone and start spouting about Hitler. I mean, hell's bells, Boris, what the blue blazes were you thinking? 

Over the past few weeks, Boris's star has been on the wane. His vacillating over which side to come down on in the referendum debate did him no favours from the outset. 

He was widely seen as having made the decision based in no small part upon his own personal ambitions to become the next Tory leader (an ambition which is looking increasing forlorn, it now appears). 

His "half-Kenyan" jibe at Barack Obama during the US president's visit to the UK to meet Prince George (or whatever it was he came over for), was crass and ill-judged, to say the least. 

But harping on about Hitler being a torchbearer for the EU has pretty much put the tin lid on things - and the Leave campaign must be livid that their greatest asset has become a bit of a liability. 

Boris is a very clever person. What he doesn't know about the Classics probably isn't worth knowing. Behind that rumpled facade lies a razor sharp brain. 

But he clearly hasn't heard of Godwin's Law. This internet-based law can be summed up thus: in any (usually online) argument, as the debate becomes increasingly heated someone, eventually, will make an analogy to Hitler and the Nazis - at which point the debate becomes so devalued as to render it over. 

I have personal experience of Godwin's Law. A few years ago in this column I noted the number of tattoos being sported by women carnival-goers in Ulverston. 

Comments to the Evening Mail website flew in until someone, inevitably, compared me to Hitler, thereby invoking Godwin's Law. It was all very amusing but a bit daft. 

I may be fond of dogs, but I flatter myself that there the similarities end between me and Mein Fuhrer. Having witnessed the debacle of Ken Livingstone dragging Hitler into the Labour antisemitism row, Boris really should have had the gumption to keep schtum on all matters Nazi when discussing the EU referendum. 

But he couldn't resist; and it was a major mistake on Boris's part, leaving him looking ridiculous and seriously calling into question his judgement. 

Even if chancellor George Osborne hadn't played his joker (Brexit may mean house prices plummet), Boris's Hitler comments may on their own have been enough to stymie the Leave campaign, which is now haemorrhaging support. 

For my money, it's now pretty much all over bar the shouting. Don't quote me on this, of course, but if come June 24 we aren't still paid up members of the EU, well, I'm Adolf Hitler.