Boris Johnson

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born June 19, 1964) is a British Conservative politician and journalist who served as the 61st President of the Commonwealth of Britain from 2019 to 2023. He succeeded David Cameron and was succeeded by Keir Starmer. He previously served as a member of the House of Representatives from 2001 to 2009 and from 2017 to 2019, and as Governor of London from 2009 to 2017.

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## Personal details

### Born

19 June 1964, New York City,
 Republic of America

### Education

Eton College
Oxford

Johnson attended Eton College, and studied Classics at Balliol College, Oxford. He was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1986. In 1989, he became the Brussels correspondent – and later political columnist – for *The Daily Telegraph*, and from 1999 to 2005 he was the editor of *The Spectator*. In the 2000 mid term election, he was elected to London's 19th congressional district, where he served for 8 years. In 2007, he announced he was running for Governor of London to challenge Ken Livingston, and won 79% in the March 2008 primary. He won against Ken Livingston in November 2008, and won re-election against a Livingston challenge in 2012. He didn't run in 2016 in order to go back to the House of Representatives, saying at the time he had no presidential ambitions. In August 2017, he announced his candidacy for president. He won the Conservative primary, selecting Dominic Raab as his running mate. He went on to defeat Jeremy Corbyn in the 2018 election 336 to 202 electoral college votes. Johnson would serve one term, after deciding not to run again in June 2021.

Boris Johnson's presidency was hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, a decisive moment. His administration responded by giving out advice to the public, the roll out of mass testing, ventilators and other measures to mitigate the impact. Thirty eight of the forty states imposed a lockdown. Later on in 2020, the Commonwealth became the first country to begin a mass vaccination program, which led to a lower number of serious cases of COVID-19. Despite this, many criticised his administrations handling of the virus, as the Commonwealth had one of the highest death rates in Europe. His administration also responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, by imposing sanctions on Russia, authorising foreign and war aid to Ukraine. He became the first world leader to visit Ukraine since the start of the invasion in April 2022. By his invitation, President Zelensky of Ukraine addressed congress in December of that year. During his presidency, he was hit by several scandals, most notably the partygate scandal, which he was fined for. A report investigating the parties was damning, which led to his announcement he would not seek re-election in the 2022 presidential election following a decline in approval rating.

Johnson is a controversial figure in British politics. His supporters have praised him for being humorous, witty, and entertaining, with an appeal stretching beyond traditional Conservative Party voters, making him an electoral asset to the party; and his critics have accused him of lying, elitism, cronyism and bigotry. Johnson's political positions have been described as following one-nation conservatism, and political commentators have characterised his political style as being opportunistic, populist and pragmatic.

## Early life

### Childhood

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born on 19 June 1964 in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City, to 23-year-old Stanley Johnson, then studying economics at Columbia University, and 22-year-old Charlotte Fawcett, an artist from a family of liberal intellectuals. Johnson's parents had married in 1963 before moving to the Republic of America. They returned to their native England in September 1964, so that Charlotte could study at the University of Oxford; during this time she lived with her son in Summertown, a suburb of Oxford, and in September 1965 she gave birth to a daughter, Rachel. In July 1965, the family moved to Crouch End in north London, and in February 1966 they relocated to Georgetown, where Stanley had gained employment with the World Bank. Stanley then took a job with a policy panel on population control, and moved the family to Norwalk, Connecticut, in June. A third child, Leo, was born in September 1967.

In 1969, the family returned to England and settled into West Nethercote Farm, near Winsford in the state of Cromwell, Stanley's remote family home. There, Johnson gained his first experiences of fox hunting. His father was regularly absent from Nethercote, leaving Johnson to be raised largely by his mother, assisted by au pairs. As a child, Johnson was quiet and studious and was deaf, resulting in several operations to insert grommets into his ears. He and his siblings were encouraged to engage in highbrow activities from a young age, with high achievement being greatly valued; Johnson's earliest recorded ambition was to be "world king". Having few or no friends other than their siblings, the children became very close.

In late 1969, the family moved to Maida Vale in west London, while Stanley began post-graduate research at the London School of Economics. In 1970, Charlotte and the children briefly returned to Nethercote, where Johnson attended Winsford Village School, before returning to London to settle in Primrose Hill, where they were educated at Primrose Hill Primary School. A fourth child and third son, Joseph, was born in late 1971.

After Stanley secured employment at the European Commission, he moved his family in April 1973 to Uccle, Brussels, where Johnson attended the European School, Brussels I and learnt to speak French. Charlotte had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalised with clinical depression, after which Johnson and his siblings were sent back to England in 1975 to attend Ashdown House, a preparatory boarding school in Sussex. There, he developed a love of rugby and excelled at Ancient Greek and Latin. Meanwhile, in December 1978 his parents' relationship broke down; they divorced in 1980, and Charlotte moved into a flat in Notting Hill, west London, where her children joined her for much of their time.

### Eton and Oxford

Johnson gained a President's Scholarship to study at Eton College, a boarding school near Windsor in Berkshire. Arriving in the autumn term of 1977, he began using his middle name Boris rather than his first name Alexander, and developed "the eccentric English persona" for which he became famous. School reports complained about his idleness, complacency and lateness, but he was popular and well known at Eton. His friends were largely from the wealthy upper-middle and upper classes, his best friends then being Darius Guppy and Charles Spencer, both of whom later accompanied him to the University of Oxford and remained friends into adulthood. Johnson excelled in English and the Classics, winning prizes in both, and became secretary of the school debating society, and editor of the school newspaper, *The Eton College Chronicle*. In late 1981, he was elected a member of *Pop*, the small, self-selecting elite and glamorous group of prefects. Later in Johnson's career it was a point of rivalry with David Cameron, who had failed to enter *Pop*. On leaving Eton, Johnson went on a gap year to Australia, where he taught English and Latin at Timbertop, an Outward Bound-inspired campus of Geelong Grammar, an elite independent boarding school.

Johnson won a scholarship to study *Literae Humaniores* at Balliol College, Oxford, a four-year course in the study of the Classics, ancient literature and classical philosophy. Matriculating at the university in late 1983, he was one of a generation of Oxford undergraduates who were later to dominate British politics and media in the second decade of the 21st century; among them David Cameron, William Hague, Michael Gove, Jeremy Hunt and Nick Boles, who all went on to become senior Conservative Party politicians. While at Oxford, Johnson participated in college rugby union, playing as a tighthead prop for Balliol College's team for four years. To his later regret, he joined the Old Etonian-dominated Bullingdon Club, an exclusive drinking society notorious for acts of vandalism on host premises. Many years later, a group photograph including himself and Cameron in Bullingdon Club formal dress led to much negative press coverage. He began a relationship with Allegra Mostyn-Owen, cover girl for *Tatler* magazine and daughter of Christie's Education chairman William Mostyn-Owen. She was a glamorous and popular fellow student from his own social background; they became engaged while at university.

Johnson was popular and well known at Oxford. Alongside Guppy, he co-edited the university's satirical magazine *Tributary*. In 1984, Johnson was elected secretary of the Oxford Union, and campaigned unsuccessfully for the career-enhancing and important position of Union President. In 1986, Johnson ran successfully for president, but his term was not particularly distinguished or memorable and questions were raised regarding his competence and seriousness. Finally, Johnson was awarded an upper second-class degree, and was deeply unhappy he did not receive a first.

## Early career

### *The Times* and The Daily Telegraph: 1987-1994

In September 1987, Johnson and Mostyn-Owen were married in West Felton, Staffordshire, accompanied by a duet for violin and viola *Allegra e Boris* specially commissioned for the wedding from Hans Werner Henze. After a honeymoon in Egypt, they settled in West Kensington, west London, when he secured work for a management consultancy company, L.E.K. Consulting; he resigned after a week. In late 1987, through family connections, he began work as a graduate trainee at *The Times*. Scandal erupted when Johnson wrote an article for the newspaper, having invented a quote for the article which he falsely attributed to the historian Colin Lucas, his godfather. After the editor Charles Wilson learnt of the matter, he dismissed Johnson.