Unique aspects of Johnson's image have included his perceived comedic or humorous persona and semi-shambolic appearance. Johnson's supporters have praised him for "getting Brexit done", overseeing the UK's vaccine rollout against COVID-19, as well as providing global leadership following the Russian invasion of Ukraine; conversely, his critics have accused him of lying, elitism and cronyism, with his final months in office mired in a series of scandals.
Johnson's political positions have been described as following one-nation conservatism, whilst political commentators have characterised his political style as being both populist and pragmatic. Johnson's political positions have changed throughout his political career.
Often known simply as Boris,[1] Johnson has attracted a variety of nicknames, including "BoJo", a portmanteau of his forename and surname.[2] Biographer Sonia Purnell described his public persona as "brand Boris", noting he developed it while at the University of Oxford.[3]
Max Hastings referred to Johnson's public image as a "façade resembling that of P. G. Wodehouse's Gussie Fink-Nottle, allied to wit, charm, brilliance and startling flashes of instability",[4] while political scientist Andrew Crines stated Johnson displayed "the character of a likable and trustworthy individual with strong intellectual capital".[5]Private Eye editor Ian Hislop has defined him as "Beano Boris" due to his perceived comical nature, saying: "He's our Berlusconi... He's the only feel-good politician we have, everyone else is too busy being responsible."[6] To the journalist Dave Hill, Johnson was "a unique figure in British politics, an unprecedented blend of comedian, conman, faux subversive showman and populist media confection".[7]
Johnson purposely cultivates a "semi-shambolic look",[8] for instance, by specifically ruffling his hair in a certain way when he makes public appearances.[9] Purnell described him as "a manic self-promoter" who has filled his life with "fun and jokes".[10] Described by Crines as "a joker",[5] Johnson has said that "humour is a utensil that you can use to sugar the pill and to get important points across".[10] Purnell wrote colleagues regularly expressed the view that Johnson used people to advance his own interests,[11] and Gimson wrote that Johnson was "one of the great flatterers of our times".[12] Purnell commented he deflected serious questions using "a little humour and a good deal of bravado".[13] According to Gimson, Johnson was "a humane man" who "could also be staggeringly inconsiderate of others" when pursuing his own interests.[14] Gimson added Johnson has "an excessive desire to be liked".[15]
Boris is an original—the opposite of a stereotype, the exception to the rule. Overweight and goosey-fleshed, he's the antithesis of an airbrushed pin-up. He resembles a 'human laundry-basket' and has a habit of forgetting to shower.[16] He is blessed with immense charisma, wit, sex appeal and celebrity gold dust; he is also recognised and loved by millions—although perhaps less so by many who have had to work closely with him (let alone depend on him). Resourceful, cunning and strategic, he can pull off serious political coups when the greater good happens to coincide with his personal advantage but these aspirations are rarely backed up by concrete achievements, or even detailed plans.[17]
Gimson stated Johnson "has very bad manners. He tends to be late, does not care about being late, and dresses without much care."[18] Highly ambitious and very competitive, Johnson was, Gimson wrote, born "to wage a ceaseless struggle for supremacy".[19] He would be angered with those he thought insulted aspects of his personal life; for instance, when an article in The Telegraph upset Johnson, he emailed commissioning editor Sam Leith with the simple message "Fuck off and die."[20] Thus, according to Purnell, Johnson hides his ruthlessness "using bumbling, self-deprecation or humour",[21] and was a fan of "laddish banter and crude sexual references".[22]
Johnson has been described as a divisive and controversial figure in British politics.[23][24][25] Purnell recognised that during the 2008 mayoral election he was "polarising opinions to the extreme",[26] with critics viewing him as "variously evil, a clown, a racist and a bigot".[27] Writing in The Guardian, journalist Polly Toynbee referred to him as a "jester, toff, self-absorbed sociopath and serial liar",[28] while Labour politician Hazel Blears called him "a nasty right-wing elitist, with odious views and criminal friends".[29] He was accused of sexism and homophobia by social media users and members of the LGBT community after referring to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as "a big girl's blouse"[30][31] and former prime minister David Cameron as a "girly swot".[32] Cameron has said of Johnson: "The thing about the greased piglet is that he manages to slip through other people's hands where mere mortals fail."[33]
Some commentators have noted his appeal beyond traditional Conservative voters. In 2011, Purnell described Johnson as "the most unconventional, yet compelling politician of the post-Blair era" and that he was "beloved by millions and recognised by all".[34] Giles Edwards and Jonathan Isaby commented Johnson appealed to "a broad cross-section of the public",[35] with his friends characterising him as a "Heineken Tory" who can appeal to voters that other Conservatives cannot (a reference to the Heineken beer advertisement).[36] Gimson expressed the view that "people love him because he makes them laugh",[37] noting that he had become "the darling of the Tory rank and file".[38]
In 2018, The Economist described Johnson as "the most irresponsible politician the country has seen for many years".[39] In 2019, The Irish Times described him as "a deeply polarising figure, cherished by many older Conservatives but viewed by others as a serial liar and an amoral opportunist who sold Brexit to the British people on the basis of false promises".[40] In 2019, Johnson's former boss at The Daily TelegraphMax Hastings described him as "a brilliant entertainer", but accused him of "[caring] for no interest save his own fame and gratification", criticised his leadership abilities and described him as "unfit for national office".[41]Laura Kuenssberg wrote in December 2021 that public perceptions of Johnson had been damaged by a series of controversies related to Westminster Christmas parties during the COVID-19 pandemic, Owen Paterson, and a Downing Street refurbishment.[42] The former Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, appearing in a Sky News programme, "The Great Debate", described Johnson as "ritually dishonest" and the worst of the twelve prime ministers he had known, with no redeeming features.[43]
From 2016, Johnson evoked comparisons (both ideological and physical) with United States President Donald Trump.[44][45][46][47] In June 2016, Nick Clegg described him as "like Donald Trump with a thesaurus",[48] while fellow Conservative MP Kenneth Clarke described him as a "nicer Donald Trump".[49] Trump acknowledged the comparison, saying British people refer to Johnson as "Britain Trump".[50] Johnson was critical of Trump on several occasions before Trump's election;[51][52] he praised Trump as president,[53] but disagreed with some of his policies.[54][55] Comparisons have also been made between Johnson and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, owing to numerous scandals, similar public images and their informal communications styles.[56]
Johnson's leadership has been viewed as the most scandalous of modern times by historians and biographers, with Andrew Gimson, Anthony Seldon and Tim Bale saying that there had not been such a scandalous prime minister since David Lloyd George in terms of scandal, controversy, and indifference to the rules of public life.[57] Seldon noted Johnson's historic "lack of respect for convention and the constitution",[57] while political historian Steven Fielding noted that, while Johnson's personal life was often aired out more publicly than past prime ministers' due to increased scrutiny since the Profumo affair, "the alacrity with which [Johnson] broke rules and conventions and norms that have defined British politics in the postwar period,that is something that is unique", noting that Johnson's behaviour in public office may set a new low for other prime ministers to emulate.[57]
Veracity of statements
Placards at an anti-Brexit protest in 2019 criticise David Cameron (left) and Boris Johnson (right).
Johnson has been accused of lying or making untruthful or misleading statements throughout his career.[58] BBC News described this as a strategy to "bamboozle the listener with a blizzard of verbiage",[59] and a 2021 analysis in The Atlantic suggested Johnson's communication style was a honed political skill that contributed to his popularity.[47] In 2019, The Independent listed his "most notorious untruths", which included fabricating a quotation whilst at The Times for which he was sacked, creating Euromyths while working for The Daily Telegraph in Brussels, misrepresenting events during the Hillsborough disaster while the editor of The Spectator, lying to Conservative leader Michael Howard about his extramarital affair, and promising that leaving the EU would provide £350 million per week for the NHS.[60]The Guardian noted that Johnson "almost never corrects the record in the chamber" and that while Johnson's spokespeople insist he follows the Ministerial Code of which honesty is part of, "No 10 will sometimes acknowledge that an error was made, but more usually brushes aside the complaint or argues that Johnson was misunderstood".[61]
Writing in The Times Literary Supplement, the scholar and former politician Rory Stewart said that Johnson is "the most accomplished liar in public life. Perhaps the best liar ever to serve as prime minister. He has mastered the use of error, omission, exaggeration, diminution, equivocation and flat denial. He has perfected casuistry, circumlocution, false equivalence and false analogy. He is equally adept at the ironic jest, the fib and the grand lie; the weasel word and half-truth; the hyperbolic lie, the obvious lie and the bullshit lie."[62][63][64][65] In 2021, the political journalist and author Peter Oborne published a book about the lies told by Johnson, in which he wrote "I have never encountered a senior British politician who lies and fabricates so regularly, so shamelessly and so systematically as Boris Johnson".[66] Contemporaneous opposition MPs Dawn Butler (of the Labour Party) and Ian Blackford (of the Scottish National Party) have both openly called Johnson a liar in the House of Commons.[67][68]Laura Kuenssberg, political editor for BBC News, noted that it was "rare for opposition parties to accuse a prime minister, on the record, of lying".[59] In January 2022, Labour leader Keir Starmer accused Johnson of lying about a Downing Street party during lockdown in May 2020.[69] Speaking in the Commons on 31 January 2022, Johnson falsely accused Starmer of not prosecuting the serial sex offender Jimmy Savile when Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions.[70][71][72]
In August 2018, The Daily Telegraph published a satirical article by Johnson criticising the then newly implemented Danish law against the wearing of Islamic face veils (i.e., the burqa or niqāb). In it, he defended the right of women to wear whatever they chose. He agreed the burqa is oppressive and that "it is weird and bullying to expect women to cover their faces" and also commented that he could "find no scriptural authority for the practice in the Koran" and that it seemed "absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letter boxes" and that "[i]f a female student turned up at school or at a university lecture looking like a bank robber" that he "should feel fully entitled—like Jack Straw— to ask her to remove it so that [he] could talk to her properly."[73] The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) accused Johnson of "pandering to the far-right", while Conservative peer Baroness Warsi accused him of dog-whistle politics.[74][75] Several senior Conservatives, including May, called on Johnson to apologise.[76][77] Others, such as MP Nadine Dorries, argued that his comments did not go far enough and that face veils should be banned.[78] A Sky News poll found 60% thought Johnson's comments were not racist, to 33% who did; 48% thought he should not apologise, while 45% thought he should.[79] An independent panel was set up to review Johnson's comments.[80] In December, the panel cleared him of wrongdoing, stating that while his language could be considered "provocative", he was "respectful and tolerant" and was fully entitled to use "satire" to make his point.[81]
Writing for the Telegraph in 2002, Johnson referred to a visit by then prime minister Tony Blair: "What a relief it must be for Blair to get out of England. It is said that the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies". In the same article he referred to African people as having "watermelon smiles".[82]
In his 2004 comic novel Seventy-Two Virgins, Johnson described the thoughts of a black parking inspector who had been subjected to racist abuse: "Faced with such disgusting behaviour, some traffic wardens respond with a merciless taciturnity. The louder the rant of the traffic offenders, the more acute are the wardens' feelings of pleasure that they, the stakeless, the outcasts, the niggers, are a valued part of the empire of law, and in a position to chastise the arrogance and selfishness of the indigenous people." In the same book, the narrator refers to the media being controlled by Jewish oligarchs.[83]
In September 2019, Labour MP Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi called on Johnson to apologise for the comments he had made about burqa-wearing Muslim women in the Telegraph. Johnson declined to apologise, stating that his remarks had come as part of a "strong liberal defence of everybody's right to wear whatever they want."[84]
According to Dave Hill in The Guardian, Johnson's views on Islam have evolved. After the 2005 bombings, he questioned the loyalty of British Muslims and said Islamophobia was a "natural reaction". But by 2008, he blamed terrorism on a minority of Muslims who distort the Qur'an. And in 2009, he urged Britons to visit their local mosques and learn more about Islam.[85]
In April 2022 a poll by JLPartners found voters most frequently described the prime minister as a, 'liar' followed by, 'incompetent' and, 'untrustworthy'. Only 16% of respondents described Johnson with positive language while over 70% used negative language.[86]
Johnson's bumbling mannerisms and distinctive hairstyle have also made him the subject of parody:
In the 2008–2012 children's TV cartoon series Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom, the mayor of Fairy Town, voiced by Alexander Armstrong, is based on Johnson, who was mayor of London at the time.
Johnson is portrayed as a half man-half dog personage who would rather engage in acts of canine behaviour like chasing his tail than answering questions, in Headcases. He is voiced by Jon Culshaw[96]
The music video for Stormzy's "Vossi Bop" features backup dancers donning wigs similar to Boris's hairstyle and throwing them on the ground just as the line “fuck the government, fuck Boris” comes in.[97]
Stanley Patrick Johnson is a British-French author of Ottoman descent, and former politician who was Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Wight and Hampshire East from 1979 to 1984. A former employee of the World Bank and the European Commission, he has written books on environmental and population issues. His six children include Boris Johnson, who was prime minister of the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2022. He is a member of the Conservative Party.
Michael Andrew Gove is a Scottish journalist, author, and retired politician who served in various Cabinet positions under David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. Apart from periods as a backbencher from July 2016 to June 2017 and July to October 2022, he served continuously in the Cabinet from 2010 to 2024. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Surrey Heath from 2005 to 2024. A member of the Conservative Party, Gove twice ran to become Leader of the Conservative Party, in 2016 and 2019, finishing in third place on both occasions. He has been editor of The Spectator since October 2024.
Parliaments and legislative bodies around the world impose certain rules and standards during debates. Tradition has evolved that there are words or phrases that are deemed inappropriate for use in the legislature whilst it is in session. In a Westminster system, this is called unparliamentary language and there are similar rules in other kinds of legislative systems. This includes, but is not limited to, the suggestion of dishonesty or the use of profanity. Most unacceptable is any insinuation that another member is dishonourable. So, for example, in the British House of Commons any direct reference to a member as lying is unacceptable, even if the allegation is substantively true. A conventional alternative, when necessary, is to complain of a "terminological inexactitude".
Sir Robert Ben Lobban Wallace is a British politician and former British Army Officer who served as Secretary of State for Defence from 2019 to 2023. A member of the Conservative Party, he was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Wyre and Preston North, formerly Lancaster and Wyre, from 2005 to 2024.
Sir James Philip Duddridge, is a British politician and former banker. A member of the Conservative Party, he served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Rochford and Southend East from 2005 to 2024. Duddridge previously held several ministerial positions under prime ministers David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
Sir Jacob William Rees-Mogg is a British politician, broadcaster and member of the Conservative Party who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for North East Somerset from 2010 to 2024. He served as Leader of the House of Commons and Lord President of the Council from 2019 to 2022, Minister of State for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency from February to September 2022 and Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy from September to October 2022. Rees-Mogg previously chaired the eurosceptic European Research Group (ERG) from 2018 to 2019 and has been associated with socially conservative views.
Timothy Montgomerie is a British political activist, blogger, and columnist. He is best known as the co-founder of the Centre for Social Justice and as creator of the ConservativeHome website, which he edited from 2005 until 2013, when he left to join The Times.
Andrew Gimson is a British political journalist. Gimson formerly wrote the parliamentary sketch for The Daily Telegraph and has written a novel entitled The Desired Effect, as well as books about Boris Johnson, British monarchs and British Prime Ministers.
Friends, Voters, Countrymen: Jottings on the Stump is a 2001 book by Boris Johnson. The book recounts Johnson's successful campaign for the seat of Henley in the 2001 general election.
Kenneth Robert Livingstone is an English retired politician who served as the Leader of the Greater London Council (GLC) from 1981 until the council was abolished in 1986, and as Mayor of London from the creation of the office in 2000 until 2008. He also served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Brent East from 1987 to 2001. A former member of the Labour Party, he was on the party's hard left, ideologically identifying as a socialist.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a British politician and writer who served as 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 for Uxbridge and South Ruislip from 2015 to 2023.
Nadhim Zahawi is an Iraqi-born British former politician who served in various ministerial positions under prime ministers Theresa May, Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak from 2018 to 2023. He most recently served as Chairman of the Conservative Party and Minister without Portfolio from 25 October 2022 until he was dismissed by Sunak on 29 January 2023. A member of the Conservative Party, he was Member of Parliament (MP) for Stratford-on-Avon from 2010 to 2024. Zahawi is perhaps most noted for being sacked as Conservative Party chairman for failing to adhere to the Ministerial Code, i.e. "to maintain high standards of behaviour and to behave in a way that upholds the highest standards of propriety".
Allegations of Islamophobia in the UK Conservative Party have been made, including against senior politicians, such as Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Zac Goldsmith. Baroness Warsi, former co-chair of the Conservative Party, said in 2018 that anti-Muslim prejudice had "poisoned" the party. Many Muslim party members welcomed Warsi's comments, saying that they felt the issue had been marginalised within the party.
Led By Donkeys is a British political campaign group established in December 2018 as an anti-Brexit group, but which has also criticised other actions of the Conservative government. After the 2024 election of a Labour government, it defined itself as an "accountability project" and stated that the Labour government was also fair game.
This is a list of endorsements for declared candidates for the 2019 leadership election for the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom.
Boris Johnson's tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom began on 24 July 2019 when he accepted an invitation of Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, succeeding Theresa May, and ended on 6 September 2022 upon his resignation. Johnson's premiership was dominated by Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the cost of living crisis. As prime minister, Johnson also served simultaneously as First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, Minister for the Union, and Leader of the Conservative Party.
Boris Johnson has declared his position on many political issues through his public comments. Johnson's political positions have changed throughout his political career. His policies, views and voting record have been the subject of commentary during Johnson's tenure in various positions, including as Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016 and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2022.
Daniel Rayne Kruger is a British Conservative Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for East Wiltshire, previously Devizes, since 2019. He has been Shadow Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence since July 2024.
Boris Johnson served as mayor of London from 1 May 2008 until 5 May 2016, being elected in 2008 and reelected in 2012. During his mayoralty, Johnson oversaw the preparations and hosting of the 2012 Summer Olympics and oversaw the cycle hire scheme. He also with introduced the New Routemaster buses and the Thames cable car, while promoting the proposed Garden Bridge over the River Thames; the project was later abandoned after Johnson left office. Johnson also banned alcohol consumption on much of London's public transport.
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