Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson
Other names	Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson
Born	19th June 1964 New York City
Occupation	journalist, politician
Political party	Conservative Party

Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (born 19th June 1964 in New York City) was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2019 until 2022. He was appointed as the UK's head of government by Queen Elizabeth II on 24th July 2019 following the resignation of Theresa May. Under Johnson, the party won a general election in December 2019. He was leader of the Conservative Party until 7th July 2022 after a series of scandals resulted in increasing criticism from his own MPs, culminating in a wave of resignations from the government. He resigned on 6th September 2022 and was succeeded by Liz Truss.

Johnson was previously a journalist for the The Times and the Daily Telegraph, but was sacked from the former for making up a quote. His subsequent political career suffered a setback when he was sacked from the Conservatives' Opposition team by leader Michael Howard in 2004 for lying about an affair. He later became Mayor of London, then Foreign Secretary under May before resigning over Brexit.

Johnson has been married three times and had four children with his second wife, Marina Wheeler. Court documents show that he has at least one other child via an affair; he also has two other children with his third wife, Carrie Symonds.

While a student at the University of Oxford Johnson had been a member of the notorious Bullingdon Club. Although Johnson would later express regret over the vandalism and whoremongering he and his friends engaged in, he shocked critics by appointing club members, like Ewen Fergusson, to positions of trust, for which they seemed unqualified. In spite of those earlier criticisms Johnson appointed former club member Harry Mount to the House of Lords appointments commission on September 2, 2022 - mere days before he was scheduled to step down as Prime Minister.

Privileges Committee investigation and Johnson's resignation as an MP

On 21 April 2022, a Parliamentary Privileges Committee was directed to investigate Johnson's behaviour with the primary task of ascertaining if he had lied in Parliament about parties and other excesses in Downing Street during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Johnson was interviewed by the committee, chaired by Harriet Harman, on 22 March 2023. He took an oath that he would tell the truth and insisted that he had not lied to Parliament. He received the committee's report on 9 June 2023 and promptly resigned from his membership of the Commons, triggering a by-election in his constituency.

Johnson issued a lengthy statement in which he characteristically tried to blame everyone except himself for his demise. He claimed that the Privileges Committee had conducted a witch-hunt against him, notwithstanding the fact that four of its seven members are Tories. Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner said: "As Johnson exits in disgrace, the British public are sick to the back teeth of this never ending Tory soap opera played out at their expense. After thirteen years of Conservative chaos, enough is enough". The deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, Daisy Cooper, said: "Good riddance". Caroline Lucas pointed out that "everyone knew Johnson was not fit to hold public office before he was even an MP". She ridiculed Johnson's "baseless accusations" against the committee who had "held him to account for treating us all with contempt (after) he lied about the most serious of things".

On BBC News, political editor Chris Mason picked up Angela Rayner's "soap opera" comment and said: "2022 was defined, politically, by a soap opera of Conservative squabbling". He described Johnson as someone "with a life-long knack for throwing stones and grabbing attention, (once again) doing just that".