Boris ‘waiting in wings for PM to fail’

British prime minister David Cameron’s position is under threat from the mayor of London, who is waiting for him to “fail miserably” at the next election so he can take his job, the leader’s former communications chief has said.

In a rare foray into politics, Andy Coulson said he thought Boris Johnson, London’s flamboyant mayor, was playing a waiting game, hoping Cameron would lose the 2015 election so he could assume his role as leader of the Conservative party.

“Stabbing David, or anyone else for that matter, in the back would be distinctly off brand — just not very Boris,” Coulson wrote in GQ magazine in an article to be published tomorrow.