Known best for his shock of blond hair, and sometimes shocking outbursts, the 47-year-old Johnson narrowly beat out the Labour Party’s Ken Livingstone — his predecessor as mayor — for the privilege of leading Britain’s capital into the global spotlight when the Summer Games begin on July 27.

In his victory speech, Johnson thanked voters for giving him a “new chance” and promised to continue “fighting for a good deal for Londoners.”

Many had expected Johnson to handily defeat Livingstone, a veteran leftist known for his admiration of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

But he won by a tighter margin than expected — 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent — and the drama of the race was heightened by delays in counting ballots. The result was announced just minutes before midnight — more than 24 hours after polls had closed.

Johnson’s victory could be bittersweet for Cameron — offering relief from his party’s national woes, but cementing the outspoken city chief as a likely future leadership rival.

Cameron’s Conservatives took a bruising in votes in the 181 local authorities in England, Wales and Scotland which held polls this year, losing more than 400 seats — including some in the leader’s own political district.

Although the results won’t put Cameron’s leadership in jeopardy, they prompted grassroots Conservatives to urge him to ditch some of his more liberal policies, including the planned introduction of same-sex marriage.

Johnson, who has appealed to traditionalists with messages on tax cuts and looser ties to Europe, is increasingly seen as a plausible national leader — not least for bucking for his party’s national slump.

“The best thing for Cameron would be to have Boris locked into the London mayoralty for the next four years and out of the way,” said Patrick Dunleavy, a political science professor at the London School of Economics.

Cameron also suffered a blow to his legislative hopes, as nine cities — including Manchester, Birmingham and Newscastle-upon-Tyne — voted down plans to have their own directly-elected city mayors.

The leader had hoped that new city chiefs, and U.S.-style elected police commissioners, would help deliver power away from Parliament and into the hands of local communities.

Bristol, in southwestern England, was the only city to vote in favor of electing a new mayor.

Like Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats — the junior partner in Britain’s coalition government — suffered a collapse, losing 336 councilors. That pushed their total number of local councilors below 3,000 for the first time since the party formed in 1988.

Main opposition Labour Party leader Ed Miliband toasted his own party’s revival after its ousting from national office in the 2010 national election. It won control of 32 more local authorities and claimed 823 new council seats.

“We are a party winning back people’s trust,” Miliband said. “People are hurting. People are suffering from this recession, people are suffering from a government that raises taxes for them and cuts taxes for millionaires.”

Cameron insisted his poll battering was to be expected at the midpoint before a 2015 national election, and with his government carrying out grueling economic repairs following the global economic crisis.

“These are difficult times and there aren’t easy answers,” Cameron acknowledged.

Elsewhere, the United Kingdom Independence Party — which advocates a British withdrawal from the European Union — made advances. The far-right British National Party saw its vote wiped out, losing all six council seats it held in the areas contesting elections.

In Scotland, Alex Salmond’s separatist Scottish National Party made local gains before an expected 2014 referendum on independence but win control of Glasgow’s council, a key target.

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Associated Press writer Bob Barr contributed to this story.

Murdoch, a naturalized U.S. citizen with extensive media properties in Australia as well, has contributed politically to both U.S. Republicans and Democrats but is associated with a conservative political slant. In the U.S., he controls the New York Post and Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, along with book publishing and movie companies.

U.K. lawmakers on Tuesday said he was unfit to lead a global media empire because he has turned a blind eye to phone hacking.

JAMES MURDOCH

The fourth of Rupert Murdoch’s six children, the 39-year-old James was once considered heir-apparent to his father’s media empire before the phone-hacking scandal tainted his reputation.

A Harvard dropout who briefly ran a record label, James joined News Corp. in 1996 as executive vice president responsible for some digital media ventures. He has led News Corp.’s Asian television group and also served as CEO of British Sky Broadcasting, in which News Corp. holds a 39 percent stake, from 2003 to 2007.

He led News Corp.’s U.K. newspapers subsidiary, News International, the unit at the center of the hacking scandal until he resigned earlier this year. In April, he also stepped down as the chairman of BSkyB. He is currently News Corp.’s deputy chief operating officer.

LES HINTON

An associate of Rupert Murdoch’s for more than half a century, Hinton resigned in July as CEO of Dow Jones & Co. and publisher of its flagship newspaper, The Wall Street Journal. Previously, he had been head of Murdoch’s News International unit when phone hacking was going on.

A U.K. parliamentary committee said Tuesday that Hinton, 68, did not tell the truth in 2009 about his role in authorizing the settlement of a legal case that threatened to reveal the extent of phone hacking or about his own knowledge of the illegal activity.

TOM CRONE

The legal affairs manager for Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid until it was closed last summer, Crone has clashed repeatedly with James Murdoch over phone hacking.

Crone says he gave the younger Murdoch a document that proved that phone hacking was widespread at the newspaper, contrary to the tabloid’s claim the illegal activity involved “one rogue reporter” and a detective. James Murdoch denies that Crone had made the position clear.

The committee said Crone gave false answers about his knowledge of phone hacking at the newspaper and misled it about the significance of confidentiality in settling the lawsuit.

COLIN MYLER

Currently editor-in-chief of the New York Daily News and formerly editor of Murdoch’s New York Post, Crone became editor of News of the World in 2007 after the paper’s royal reporter went to jail for phone hacking. Myler, 59, supported Crone’s claim that James Murdoch had been told about the extent of phone hacking.

The U.K. committee said Myler lied about his knowledge of phone hacking at U.K. tabloid, a charge he denies.

Williams worked for Britain’s secret eavesdropping service GCHQ and was attached to the country’s MI6 overseas spy agency when he was found in the bathtub of his central London home in August 2010.

There were no signs of struggle, and no drugs or poison in the 31-year-old’s body, the discovery of which launched a media frenzy and flurry of conspiracy theories.

Police have made no arrests in the case and are still not certain exactly how Williams died.

But Scotland Yard raised the possibility that criminal charges could still arise, telling the inquest Monday that it objected to the release of some material to the media because that could prejudice future criminal proceedings.

Detectives have suggested Williams may have died in a sex game gone wrong, but Williams’ family told a pre-inquest review in March that they do not accept a claim by British authorities that his death was unconnected to his work.

Their lawyer, Anthony O’Toole, said at the time that the family believe an “unknown third party” specializing in “the dark arts of the secret services” may have tampered with the scene where Williams was found, or interfered with other evidence that could help explain how he died.

The inquest, which began Monday, will investigate whether Williams could possibly have climbed inside the sports bag and locked it from the inside.

Experts consulted by police said Williams could not have locked himself inside the bag.

In Britain, inquests must be held when someone dies unexpectedly, violently or from unknown causes. However, the coroner’s task is to determine the cause of death, rather than to identify any suspect.

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Associated Press writer Meera Selva contributed to this report.

The committee is carrying out its own internal investigations into the U.K. newspapers still in Murdoch’s stable — The Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times — and has been cooperating with the police investigations.

News International confirmed that one of the suspects arrested on Thursday was a journalist at The Sun newspaper, but declined to say if the journalist was male or female or provide further details.

Those arrested in the dawn raids Thursday include a 36-year-old man on suspicion of conspiracy to corrupt and cause misconduct in a public office, police said. They added that the man was arrested at his home in Kent and is being questioned at a Kent police station.

The force said that a 42-year-old man and a 38-year-old woman also are being questioned at a Lancashire police station after being arrested at their home early Thursday. The man, a former member of the armed forces, was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in a public office and the woman was arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office, police said.

Officers carried out searches at the homes of those under arrest, Scotland Yard added.

In all, 43 people have been arrested in three parallel investigations into alleged bribery of public officials, phone voice mail hacking and computer hacking — including at least 25 past and present employees of News International. Some have been arrested more than once on suspicion of different offenses.

Britain’s chief prosecutor said Wednesday that criminal charges are being considered against 11 people in four cases related to hacking investigations.

Four journalists, one police officer and six other people are involved in those cases, the first to be referred to prosecutors since the probes were launched amid public outrage that journalists at Murdoch’s News of the World had routinely intercepted voice mails of celebrities and crime victims.

Murdoch closed the 168-year-old tabloid in July, while British Prime Minister David Cameron ordered a sweeping, judge-led inquiry into British media ethics to determine why an initial 2006 police investigation into phone hacking failed to uncover the scope of the problem.

That inquiry, headed by Lord Justice Brian Leveson, has heard extensive sworn testimony about gross criminal acts committed by tabloid reporters, including descriptions of how reporters hacked into the phone of a missing girl later found murdered.

Celebrities have described extreme media harassment and said they felt stalked and trapped by overzealous, unscrupulous reporters.

The Leveson Inquiry, expected to eventually propose reforms to the press system, resumes on Monday after a three week break.

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Cassandra Vinograd can be reached at http://twitter.com/CassVinograd

The official review sounds like a response to bad publicity generated by the Joyce incident, said George Jones, a professor emeritus of government at the London School of Economics.

“It damages the reputation of the House of Commons, and one way of dealing with it is to show that the House of Commons takes it all very seriously, that it cares,” he said. “There is a culture of drinking and it’s encouraged by the access of these MPs to cheap drink at any time. It’s long been so.”

Lawmakers’ appreciation for liquor has included Winston Churchill’s legendary love of champagne, Margaret Thatcher’s thirst for Scotch, and Prime Minister David Cameron’s past membership in the Bullingdon Club, a collegiate society known for its drinking binges.

But as Britain explores ways of tackling excessive drinking by its citizens — including a minimum price on alcohol — public drunkenness by public servants boozing in the nearly 20 bars and restaurants in Parliament has come to the fore.

There was Conservative lawmaker Mark Reckless, who admitted to the BBC he was too drunk to vote on the 2010 budget and “doesn’t remember” falling over.

In January, opposition Labour lawmaker Chris Bryant said the scene at one of the largest bars in Parliament, Strangers, felt like London’s Rupert Street — a Soho stretch known for its gay watering holes.

Then came Joyce’s February assaults, generating front-page headlines about overindulgence at the seat of government.

That seems to have prompted Speaker of the House John Bercow to seek a review of alcohol’s role on the Parliamentary Estate.

Alcohol sold there — from draught beers to Autumnal wine selections, Jameson Irish Whiskey and Campari aperitifs — is typically priced below normal bars and pubs, thanks to a broad subsidy that covers all food and refreshment costs in the House of Commons.

When it is finished in April, the House of Commons Commission’s review could enforce changes in opening and closing hours or raise prices.

But many say overdoing it with pints in Parliament is less common than in the old days and that the Commons is now more family friendly (one pub was converted to a nursery) and lifestyles have changed.

Several watering holes have closed over the past few years, and lawmakers seem more concerned with politicking or pumping iron in the gym than pub-hopping or indulging in boozy lunches.

Conservative lawmaker Sarah Wollaston said she has been told by long-serving colleagues that drinking used to be a serious issue in Parliament but is now more moderate.

But, he said, the Joyce case highlights the need for real guidelines on drinking at work.

“You wouldn’t visit a surgeon who had drunk a bottle of wine at lunchtime,” she said in an email. “Parliament should have drinking-at-work guidelines like everywhere else.”