The rise of Boris Johnson

A gaffe-prone politician somehow turning every disaster into triumph

His carefully dishevelled appearance, his remarkable ability to escape every disaster unscathed and his slapdash relationship with the truth make him Britain’s Marmite politician. Whether you love or loathe Boris Johnson- you know who he is. This is his story. Widely disliked but wildly popular. A successful journalist, who made up the facts. A disheveled classicist with ruthless ambition. A gaffe-prone politician somehow turning every disaster into triumph. Boris Johnson → Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is one of the UK’s most recognizable politicians. Born in New York City on 19th June 1964, he attended private schools Ashdown House and Eton College. In 1983, he went up to Oxford to study Classics. He was a member of the elite Bullingdon drinking club alongside future Prime Minister David Cameron.

In Oxford, he met Allegra Mostyn-Owen, who he married in 1987. Boris lost his wedding ring an hour after the ceremony. After university, he was fired from his first job as a journalist at the Times for inventing a quote. Sent to report from Brussels for the Telegraph. He helped to feed a growing euroscepticism among Conservatives. With exaggerated reports about the EU banning bendy bananas and deputies raking in huge fortunes from nation states he was soon a household name and Margaret Thatcher’s favorite journalist. His marriage fell apart in 1993 after an affair with Marina Wheeler, who he married and had a baby with a few weeks later. Back in the UK in the early 90s, his fame grew with regular appearances on talk-shows and columns in the Telegraph, Spectator, GQ. In 1999, Conrad Black offered him to edit the Spectator, on the condition he stayed away from politics.

For Boris, it was time to launch a political career. In 2001, he was elected Conservative MP for Henley on Thames. From 2004 to 2006, 2 romantic affairs were revealed by the tabloid press. Lying about 1 of them got him fired from Michael Howard’s shadow cabinet. In 2008, he launched his campaign to become Mayor of London, and won. In February 2016, he announced he was supporting the Leave campaign in the EU referendum and travelled the country in a notorious red bus. In June, the UK voted for Brexit. Cameron resigned. But Boris’ bid to become Prime Minister stumbled after he was backstabbed by fellow Leave campaigner Michael Gove. Instead, he was made Foreign Secretary in Theresa May’s government. In the job he stirred controversy with Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Indian Sikhs, Myanmar, Libya, Russia and UK business leaders. He quit in 2018, protesting the government’s negotiating strategy, but kept up his controversial public profile writing incendiary / offensive columns for the Daily Telegraph.

Brut.