FACTBOX-Mayoral hopeful Boris Johnson

(Reuters) - The Conservatives have named flamboyant politician Boris Johnson as their candidate for London mayor, setting the stage for an entertaining battle of maverick celebrities to run Western Europe's biggest city.

Johnson, 43, is the colourful Conservative MP for Henley.

Here are five facts about the candidate:

-- Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is the great grandson of a Turkish journalist who was briefly a minister in the defunct Ottoman empire.

-- He was born in New York and educated at Eton and Oxford, where he was Union President and a member of the Bullingdon Club, the exclusive dining club whose members included one David Cameron, now Conservative Party leader.

-- A former editor of the Spectator, he succeeded Michael Heseltine as the member for Henley in June 2001 and was appointed Shadow Minister for the Arts in April 2004. He was made Shadow Minister for Higher Education in December 2005 and stood down when he announced his candidature for mayor.

Of his political ambitions he once said: "I have as much chance of becoming prime minister as of being decapitated by a frisbee or of finding Elvis."

-- With his flyaway fair hair and habitually rumpled attire, Johnson revels in his scruffy appearance. Guardian writer Simon Hoggart wrote of his wardrobe: "It would be unfair to say it looks as if he dresses at a charity shop, because no charity shop would accept stuff in that condition."

-- An apparent prerequisite for the post of London Mayor is the ability to generate controversy and in this respect Johnson's credentials are sound. In 2004 he managed to offend the entire city of Liverpool by criticising its grief over murdered Iraq hostage Ken Bigley, saying it wallowed in its "victim status". Bigley's brother called him a "self-centered, pompous twit."