Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19 June 1964) is a British politician and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He was previously Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018 and Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Henley from 2001 to 2008 and Uxbridge and South Ruislip from 2015 to 2023.
"BoJo" and "Bo Jo" redirect here. For other uses, see Bojo (disambiguation).
Boris Johnson
Theresa May
Liz Truss
Theresa May
19 June 1964
New York City, US
- United Kingdom
- United States (until 2016)[1]
- Rachel Johnson (sister)
- Jo Johnson (brother)
- Julia Johnson (half-sister)
- James Fawcett (grandfather)
- Edmund Fawcett (uncle)
- Ali Kemal (great-grandfather)
- Elias Avery Lowe (great-grandfather)
- Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter (great-grandmother)
- Lara Johnson-Wheeler (daughter)
- Politician
- author
- journalist
Johnson attended Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford in his youth; and he was elected president of the Oxford Union in 1986. In 1989, he began writing for The Daily Telegraph, and from 1999 to 2005 he was the editor of The Spectator. He became a member of the shadow cabinet of Michael Howard in 2001 before being sacked in 2004 for lying about his private life. After Howard resigned, he became a member of David Cameron's shadow cabinet. He was elected Mayor of London in 2008 and resigned from the House of Commons to focus his attention on the mayoralty. He was re-elected mayor in 2012, but did not run for re-election in 2016. At the 2015 general election he was elected MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. Johnson was a prominent figure in the Brexit campaign in the 2016 European Union membership referendum. After the referendum, Prime Minister Theresa May appointed him foreign secretary. He resigned from the position in 2018 in protest at both the Chequers Agreement and May's approach to Brexit.
Johnson succeeded May as prime minister. He re-opened Brexit negotiations with the European Union and in early September he prorogued Parliament; the Supreme Court later ruled the action to have been unlawful. After agreeing to a revised Brexit withdrawal agreement but failing to win parliamentary support, Johnson called a snap general election to be held in December 2019, which the Conservative Party won. During Johnson's premiership, the government responded to the COVID-19 pandemic by introducing various emergency powers to mitigate its impact and approved a nationwide vaccination programme. He also responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia and authorising foreign aid and weapons shipments to Ukraine.[2] In the Partygate scandal it was found that numerous parties had been held at 10 Downing Street during national COVID-19 lockdowns, and COVID-19 social distancing laws were breached by 83 individuals, including Johnson, who in April 2022 was issued with a fixed penalty notice. The publishing of the Sue Gray report in May 2022 and a widespread sense of dissatisfaction led in June 2022 to a vote of confidence in his leadership amongst Conservative MPs, which he won. In July 2022, revelations over his appointment of Chris Pincher as deputy chief whip of the party while knowing of allegations of sexual misconduct against him led to a mass resignation of members of his government and to Johnson announcing his resignation as prime minister. He was succeeded as Prime Minister by Liz Truss. He remained in the House of Commons as a backbencher until 9 June 2023, when he received the draft of the Commons Privileges Committee investigation into his conduct that unanimously found that he had lied to the Commons on numerous occasions. Johnson resigned his position as MP the same day.
Johnson is seen by many as a controversial figure in British politics.[3][4] His supporters have praised him for being humorous, witty, and entertaining,[5] with an appeal reaching beyond traditional Conservative Party voters, making him, in their view, an electoral asset to the party.[6][7] Conversely, his critics have accused him of lying, elitism, cronyism and bigotry.[8][9][10] As prime minister, his supporters praised him for "getting Brexit done", overseeing the UK's COVID-19 vaccination programme, which was amongst the fastest in the world, and being one of the first world leaders to offer humanitarian support to Ukraine following the Russian invasion of the country.[11][12][13] His tenure also saw several controversies and scandals, and is viewed as the most scandalous premiership of modern times by historians and biographers alike.[14] Johnson has commonly been described as a one-nation conservative, and political commentators have characterised his political style as opportunistic, populist and pragmatic.[15][16][17]
Early life and education
Childhood
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born on 19 June 1964 in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City,[18][19] to Stanley Johnson, then studying economics at Columbia University,[20] and Charlotte Fawcett,[21] an artist. Johnson is one of only two British prime ministers to have been an American citizen .[22][23] Johnson's parents returned to the UK in September 1964 so Charlotte could study at the University of Oxford.[24] She lived with her son in Summertown, Oxford, and in September 1965 she gave birth to a daughter, Rachel.[25] In July 1965, the family moved to Crouch End in North London,[26] and in February 1966 they relocated to Washington, DC, where Stanley worked with the World Bank.[27] Stanley then took a job with a policy panel on population control, and moved the family to Norwalk, Connecticut, in June.[28] A third child, Leo, was born in September 1967.[29]
Early career
The Times and The Daily Telegraph: 1987–1994
In September 1987, Johnson and Mostyn-Owen married.[79] They settled in West Kensington, London.[80] In late 1987, through family connections, he began work as a graduate trainee at The Times.[81] Scandal erupted when Johnson wrote an article for the newspaper on the archaeological discovery of Edward II's palace, having invented a quote which he falsely attributed to the historian Colin Lucas, his godfather. After the paper's editor, Charles Wilson, learnt of the matter, he dismissed Johnson.[82]
Johnson secured employment on the lead-writing desk of The Daily Telegraph, having met its editor, Max Hastings, while at university.[83] His articles appealed to the newspaper's Conservative-voting "Middle England" readership,[84] and he was known for his distinctive literary style, replete with old-fashioned phrasing and for regularly referring to the readership as "my friends".[85] In early 1989, Johnson was appointed to the newspaper's Brussels bureau to report on the European Commission,[86] remaining in the post until 1994.[87] A strong critic of the integrationist Commission president Jacques Delors, he established himself as one of the city's few Eurosceptic journalists.[88] He wrote articles about euromyths: that Brussels had recruited sniffer dogs to ensure that all manure smelt the same,[89] they were about to dictate the acceptable curve of British bananas,[b] limit the power of their vacuum cleaners[91][c] and order women to return their old sex toys.[89] He wrote that euro notes made people impotent and that a plan to blow up the Berlaymont building was in place because asbestos cladding made the building too dangerous to inhabit.[89] Many of his fellow journalists were critical of his articles, saying they often contained lies designed to discredit the commission.[94] The Europhile Conservative politician Chris Patten later said that Johnson was "one of the greatest exponents of fake journalism".[87] Johnson opposed banning handguns after the Dunblane school massacre, writing in his column "Nanny is confiscating their toys. It is like one of those vast Indian programmes of compulsory vasectomy."[95]
According to one of his biographers, Sonia Purnell, – who was Johnson's Brussels deputy[87] – he helped make Euroscepticism "an attractive and emotionally resonant cause for the Right", whereas it had been associated previously with the Left.[96] Johnson's articles exacerbated tensions between the Conservative Party's Eurosceptic and Europhile factions. As a result, he earned the mistrust of many party members.[97] His writings were also a key influence on the emergence of the eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the early 1990s.[96] Conrad Black, then proprietor of The Daily Telegraph, said Johnson "was such an effective correspondent for us in Brussels that he greatly influenced British opinion on this country's relations with Europe".[98]
In February 1990, Johnson's wife Allegra broke up with him; after several attempts at reconciliation, their marriage ended in April 1993.[99][100] He began a relationship with childhood friend Marina Wheeler, who had moved to Brussels in 1990.[101] They were married in May 1993.[102] Soon after, Marina gave birth to a daughter.[103] Johnson and his new wife settled in Islington, North London,[104] an area known for its association with the left-liberal intelligentsia. Under the influence of this milieu and of his wife, Johnson moved in a more liberal direction on issues such as climate change, LGBT rights and race relations.[105] While in Islington, the couple had three more children, all given the surname Johnson-Wheeler.[106] They were sent to the local Canonbury Primary School and then to private secondary schools.[107] Devoting much time to his children, Johnson wrote a book of verse, The Perils of the Pushy Parents: A Cautionary Tale, which was published to largely poor reviews.[108]
Political columnist: 1994–1999
Back in London, Hastings turned down Johnson's request to become a war reporter,[109] instead promoting him to assistant editor and chief political columnist.[110] Johnson's column received praise for being ideologically eclectic and distinctively written, and earned him Commentator of the Year Award at the What the Papers Say awards.[111] Some critics condemned his writing style as bigotry; in columns he used the words "piccaninnies" and "watermelon smiles" when referring to Africans, championed European colonialism in Uganda[112][113][114] and referred to gay men as "tank-topped bumboys".[115]
In 1993, Johnson outlined his desire to run as a Conservative in the 1994 European Parliament elections. Andrew Mitchell convinced Major not to veto Johnson's candidacy, but Johnson could not find a constituency.[116] He turned his attention to obtaining a seat in the House of Commons instead. After being rejected as Conservative candidate for Holborn and St. Pancras, he was selected the Conservative candidate for Clwyd South in north Wales, then a Labour Party safe seat. Spending six weeks campaigning, he attained 9,091 votes (23 per cent) in the 1997 general election, losing to Labour candidate Martyn Jones.[117]
Scandal erupted in June 1995 when a recording of a 1990 telephone conversation between Johnson and his friend Darius Guppy was made public.[118] In it, Guppy said that his criminal activities involving insurance fraud were being investigated by News of the World journalist Stuart Collier, and he asked Johnson to provide him with Collier's private address, seeking to have the latter beaten. Johnson agreed, although he expressed concern that he would be associated with the attack.[118] When the phone conversation was published, Johnson stated that ultimately he had not obliged Guppy's request. Hastings reprimanded Johnson but did not dismiss him.[118]
Johnson was given a regular column in The Spectator, sister publication to The Daily Telegraph, which attracted mixed reviews and was often thought rushed.[119] In 1999, he was also given a column reviewing new cars in the American men's monthly magazine GQ.[120] The large number of parking fines that Johnson acquired while testing cars frustrated staff.[115] At The Daily Telegraph and The Spectator, he was consistently late delivering copy, forcing staff to stay late to accommodate him; some related that if they published without his work, he would shout at them with expletives.[121]
Johnson's April 1998 appearance on the BBC's satirical current affairs show Have I Got News for You brought him national fame.[122] He was invited back on to later episodes, including as a guest presenter; for his 2003 appearance, Johnson was nominated for the BAFTA Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance.[123][124] After these appearances, he came to be recognised on the street, and was invited to appear on other shows, such as Top Gear, Parkinson, Breakfast with Frost, and Question Time.[125]
The Spectator and MP for Henley: 1999–2008
In July 1999, Conrad Black offered Johnson the editorship of The Spectator on the condition he abandon his parliamentary aspirations; Johnson agreed.[126] While retaining The Spectator's traditional right-wing bent, Johnson welcomed contributions from leftist writers and cartoonists.[127] Under Johnson's editorship, the magazine's circulation grew by 10% to 62,000 and it became profitable.[128] His editorship also drew criticism; some opined that under him The Spectator avoided serious issues,[129] while colleagues became annoyed that he was regularly absent from the office, meetings, and events.[130] He gained a reputation as a poor political pundit because of incorrect political predictions.[129] His father-in-law Charles Wheeler and others strongly criticised him for allowing Spectator columnist Taki Theodoracopulos to publish racist and antisemitic language.[131][132]
Journalist Charlotte Edwardes wrote in The Times in 2019 that Johnson had squeezed her thigh at a private lunch at the Spectator in 1999 and that another woman had told her he had done the same to her. A spokesman denied the allegation.[133][134]
In 2004, Johnson published an editorial in The Spectator after the murder of Ken Bigley suggesting that Liverpudlians were wallowing in their victim status and "hooked on grief" over the Hillsborough disaster, which Johnson partly blamed on "drunken fans".[135][136] In an appendix added to a later edition of his 2005 book The Dream of Rome, Tell MAMA and the Muslim Council of Britain criticised Johnson for arguing Islam has caused the Muslim world to be "literally centuries behind" the West.[137]
