Boris Johnson was named the new Prime Minister of England after the departure of Theresa May!
So let’s find out some trivia and facts about the new Prime Minister!
- His full name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson
- He was born on 19 June 1964
- He is a British politician who is Prime minister-designate of the United Kingdom
- He has been Leader of the Conservative Party since 23 July 2019
- He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Uxbridge and South Ruislip since 2015
- And was the MP for Henley from 2001 to 2008
- He was Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016
- And from 2016 to 2018 he served as Foreign Secretary
- Johnson identifies as a one-nation conservative and has formerly been associated with both economically and socially liberal policies
- He was born in New York City to wealthy upper-middle class British parents
- Johnson was educated at the European School, Brussels I, Ashdown House, and Eton College
- He read Classics at Balliol College, Oxford
- There he was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1986
- He began his career in journalism at The Times
- He was sacked for falsifying a quotation
- He later became The Daily Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent
- With his articles exerting a strong influence on the growing Eurosceptic sentiment among the British right-wing
- He was eventually made assistant editor of the Telegraph in 1994
- In 1999, he left the Telegraph to become editor of The Spectator
- A role he would hold until 2005
- He was elected MP for Henley in 2001
- And largely adhered to the Conservatives’ party line during his first period in Parliament
- He did, however, adopt a more socially liberal stance on issues like LGBT rights
- He was later selected to be the Conservative candidate for the 2008 London mayoral election
- Johnson defeated Labour incumbent Ken Livingstone in the election
- He subsequently resigned his seat in the House of Commons
- During his first term as Mayor of London, he banned alcohol consumption on the city’s public transport
- And introduced the New Routemaster buses, cycle hire scheme, and Thames cable car
- In 2012, he was re-elected Mayor
- Again defeating Livingstone
- During his second term he oversaw the 2012 Olympics
- In 2015, he returned to Parliament as MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip
- Stepping down as Mayor the following year
- In 2016, Johnson was a prominent figure in the referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union
- Becoming a leading figure in the successful Vote Leave campaign
- He later declined to run in the party leadership election immediately following the referendum
- Despite speculation that he would
- After Theresa May won the leadership, she appointed Johnson Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
- He served in this position for two years
- Before resigning in protest at May’s approach to Brexit
- Criticising the Chequers Agreement
- Johnson subsequently stood in the leadership election that followed May’s own resignation
- And on 23 July 2019, he was elected Leader of the Conservative Party
- He is expected to take office as Prime Minister the following day
- Johnson is a controversial figure within British politics and journalism
- Supporters have praised him as an entertaining, humorous, and popular figure
- With an appeal stretching beyond traditional Conservative voters
- Conversely, he has been criticised by figures on both the left and the right
- Who have accused him of elitism, cronyism, dishonesty, laziness, and using racist and homophobic language
- Johnson is the subject of several biographies and a number of fictionalised portrayals
- Johnson was portrayed by Will Barton in the 2017 BBC-produced drama Theresa vs. Boris: How May Became PM
- And by Richard Goulding in the 2019 HBO and Channel 4 drama Brexit: The Uncivil War
- Johnson is the eldest of the four children
- His father is Stanley Johnson
- He was a former Conservative Member of the European Parliament and employee of the European Commission and the World Bank
- And his mother is the painter Charlotte Johnson Wahl
- She was the daughter of Sir James Fawcett, a barrister and president of the European Commission of Human Rights
- His younger siblings are Rachel Johnson, a writer and journalist
- Leo Johnson, a partner specialising in sustainability at accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers
- And Jo Johnson, the former Minister of State for Universities and Science and Conservative MP for Orpington
- Johnson’s stepmother, Jenny, the second wife of his father Stanley, is the stepdaughter of Teddy Sieff, the former chairman of Marks & Spencer
- In April 2017, Rachel Johnson joined the Liberal Democrats in protest against Conservative Brexit policies
- She was a member of the Conservatives between 2008 and 2011
- Johnson had dual citizenship in the United Kingdom and the United States
- Since he was born in New York City to English parents
- In 2014, Johnson acknowledged he was disputing a demand for capital gains tax from the US tax authorities
- Which ultimately he paid
- In February 2015, he announced his intention to give up US citizenship to demonstrate his loyalty to the UK
- And in 2016 he renounced his US citizenship
- Johnson is a fluent speaker of French and Italian
- And has a good grasp of German, Spanish and Latin
- Frequently using classical references in his newspaper columns and speeches
- In 1987, he married Allegra Mostyn-Owen
- She is the daughter of the art historian William Mostyn-Owen and the Italian writer Gaia Servadio
- The marriage was dissolved in 1993
- A couple of weeks later he married Marina Wheeler
- A barrister and daughter of journalist and broadcaster Charles Wheeler and his wife, Dip Singh
- Five weeks later, Wheeler and Johnson’s first child was born
- The Wheeler and Johnson families have known each other for decades
- And Marina Wheeler was at the European School, Brussels I at the same time as her future husband
- They have four children: two daughters and two sons
- In April 2006, the News of the World alleged that Johnson was having an affair with the journalist Anna Fazackerley
- The pair refused to comment and shortly after Johnson began employing Fazackerley
- In 2009, Johnson fathered a daughter with Helen MacIntyre, an arts consultant
- The child’s existence was the subject of legal action in 2013
- With the Court of Appeal quashing an injunction seeking to ban reporting of her existence
- The judge ruled that the public had a right to know about Johnson’s “reckless” behaviour
- In that court case, it was additionally claimed that Johnson has had another child out of wedlock
- In September 2018, Johnson and Wheeler issued a statement confirming that after 25 years of marriage they had separated “several months ago”
- And had begun the process of getting divorced
- Johnson’s current girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, is the daughter of Matthew Symonds, co-founder of The Independent, and Josephine Mcaffee, a lawyer
- In June 2019, Johnson said that he paints wooden crates to resemble buses as a hobby
- In 2007 he said he had smoked cannabis before he went to university
- He has also admitted to trying cocaine
- The year he was named Prime Minister he was 55 years old
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