Boris Johnson: My popularity won’t last after the Olympic Games

 
2 August 2012

Boris Johnson today claimed his rocketing popularity would “all come crashing down” after the Olympics.

The Mayor said that “adulation is fine” but brushed aside polls which put him as favourite to succeed David Cameron as Tory leader.

He told the Standard: “It’s totally nuts. Everybody knows that’s never going to happen.”

A YouGov poll for The Sun today found that 36 per cent of people thought the Mayor was suited to be Prime Minister, up from 24 per cent in May.

It also found that with Mr Johnson as leader, the Tories would cut Labour’s poll lead by five points, putting the Conservatives on 37 per cent, Labour on 38 per cent and the Lib-Dems on 10  per cent.

The findings will fuel speculation that the Mayor hopes to capitalise on his international profile which has been raised by the Games.

But Mr Johnson said: “This will all come crashing down, we all know that. Adulation is fine. But we all know these things are cyclical. I’m very proud of the way things are going at the moment but there are going to be some very hard yards after the Games are over.”

The Mayor rejected suggestions he was unwise to invite Rupert Murdoch as his guest to the Olympics because he is responsible for the Met, which is investigating phone hacking at the media tycoon’s newspapers.

“We’ve got to stop demonising people. As far as I understand the matter, Rupert Murdoch is not under any criminal investigation,” he said. “He has done more to sponsor sport in London and indeed in the country than almost anybody else I can think of.”

He added that Mr Murdoch and other corporate guests would not have their tickets funded by the taxpayer even though there was a shortfall of £139,000 in sponsorship raised by the London and Partners promotion agency.

Tickets will be funded by sponsors and private sector income instead.

The Mayor also denied there was a major problem with empty seats. “The venues I’ve been to, and I’ve been to a lot, there are very big crowds and very few empty seats,” he said. “If there’s more we can do to get Londoners in on a returns basis or whatever let’s do it.”

And he insisted that while trade was “patchy” across the capital, London was not a ghost town and would benefit from the long-term impact of the Games.

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