Reuters/London
London mayor Boris Johnson eclipsed Prime Minister David Cameron as Olympic host this summer, but the eccentric Conservative will have to bide his time before mounting any serious challenge for the top job.Johnson followed up his Olympic antics — dangling from a zip line waving the national flag and speeches extolling British success — with criticism of Cameron’s handling of the economy, prompting speculation he was already plotting to replace him.An opinion poll this week suggested the mayor could revive the flagging popularity of the centre-right Conservatives, who have ruled in uneasy coalition with the left-leaning Liberal Democrats since 2010.The Conservatives could make up a 13-point lead now held by their Labour opponents if Johnson took over, the YouGov poll for the Sun newspaper showed, reviving talk he may seek, with other dissenters, to oust Cameron before the 2015 parliamentary poll.Many in the party play that down. “The whole thing is delightful Westminster gossip, but no more than that,” Conservative lawmaker and member of the party’s influential 1922 Committee Bernard Jenkin said.Johnson, a formidable campaigner with a gift for persuading voters of all hues to like him, has no parliamentary seat, so to take over before 2015 he would have to step down as mayor and seize his chance in a bye-election if a seat became vacant.“In the future, anything is possible but there is not going to be regicide on David Cameron,” Jenkin said. “The idea that somehow Boris is going to get into parliament, destabilise the leadership, is just absolutely for the birds.” Johnson, 48, has dismissed as “complete cloud cuckoo land” speculation that he might seek election to parliament during his mayoral term, which finishes in 2016, and said, with his trademark informality, that he would be “clapped out” by then.But Cameron has come under fire from his party for failing to take a tough enough line on the European Union and steering Britain back into recession while missing a string of his own austerity targets.The prime minister and Finance Minister George Osborne have staked their political careers and the party’s re-election chances on a return to economic growth before 2015 - both faced the humiliation of being jeered at the Paralympic Games. By contrast, Johnson’s star has kept on rising. Although a product of the same elite Eton College private school and Oxford University as Cameron, Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson has little obvious in common with him.Where the prime minister is sharply dressed and slick, on message and politically pragmatic, Johnson twins his scatty manner and wild puff of blond hair with acrobatic use of language and comic turns that give him wide appeal.Appearances on popular television shows have cemented his position as one of the few celebrities in British politics and the Olympics gave him a global stage.