History has been made again as Boris Johnson, a British politician and Conservationist has taken over from Theresa May as the current Prime Minister.
There are lots of amazing information about this ruffled, yellow-haired man and references are almost inexhaustible about him.
Here are interesting facts about the new British PM of No. 10 Downing Street...
* Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson was born 19th June, 1964.
* He is a British politician serving as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 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 also served as Mayor of London from 2008 to 2016, and as Foreign Secretary from 2016 to 2018.
* Johnson identifies as a one-nation conservative and has been associated with both economically and socially liberal policies.
* Born in New York City to wealthy upper-middle class English parents, Johnson was educated at the European School, Brussels I , Ashdown House, and Eton College.
* He read Classics at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was elected President of the Oxford Union in 1986.
* He began his career in journalism at The Times but was sacked for falsifying a quotation. He later became The Daily Telegraph 's Brussels correspondent, with his articles exerting a strong influence on growing Eurosceptic sentiment among the British right wing.
* He was assistant editor of the Telegraph from 1994 to 1999 and edited The Spectator from 1999 to 2005.
* He was elected MP for Henley in 2001, and served in the Shadow Cabinet under Conservative leaders Michael Howard and David Cameron.
* He largely adhered to the Conservatives' party line but adopted a more socially liberal stance on issues like LGBT rights in parliamentary votes.
* During his first term as Mayor of London, Johnson banned alcohol consumption on much of the capital's public transport, championed London's financial sector, and introduced the New Routemaster buses, cycle hire scheme, and Thames cable car.
* In 2012 he was re-elected and during his second term he oversaw the 2012 Summer Olympics.
* In 2015 he was elected MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, stepping down as Mayor the following year.
* In 2016, Johnson became a prominent figure in the successful Vote Leave campaign for Brexit . He was subsequently appointed Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs by Theresa May , but resigned in criticism of May's approach to Brexit and the Chequers Agreement two years later.
* In July 2019 he was elected Conservative Leader and appointed Prime Minister.
* Johnson is said to be 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.
* Going back to his background and formative years, Johnson was born to British parents 1964 on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, USA.
* His birth was registered both with the U.S authorities and with New York City's British Consulate, thereby granting him both American and British citizenship.
* His father, Stanley Johnson , was then studying economics at Columbia University.
* Johnson's mother is Charlotte Fawcett; an artist from a family of liberal intellectuals, she had married Stanley in 1963, prior to their move to the U.S.
* Johnson's paternal great-grandfather was a Circassian -Turkish journalist Ali Kemal, who was a secular Muslim. On his father's side he also has English and French ancestry, including descents from King George II of Great Britain.
* Johnson's maternal grandfather was the lawyer Sir James Fawcett.
* Johnson's mother is the granddaughter of Elias Avery Lowe, a palaeographer, who was a Russian Jewish immigrant to the U.S. and
Helen Tracy Lowe-Porter , a translator of Thomas Mann .
* Cnsequently, through Elias, Johnson descended from an Orthodox rabbi from Lithuania.
* In reference to his varied ancestry, Johnson has described himself as a "one-man melting pot"—with a combination of Muslims, Jews, and Christians as great-grandparents.
* Johnson was given the middle name "Boris" after a Russian émigré his parents had once met.
* As a child, Johnson was quiet and studious, although he suffered from hearing loss, resulting in several operations to insert grommets into his ears.
* He and his siblings were encouraged to engage in "high-brow" activities from a young age, with high achievement being greatly valued.
* Johnson's earliest recorded ambition was to be "world king".
* Although school reports complained about Johnson's idleness, complacency, and lateness, he was popular and well known at Eton.
* His friends were largely from the wealthy upper-middle and upper classes; his best friends were Darius Guppy and Charles Spencer , both of whom accompanied him to Oxford University and remained friends into adulthood.
* Johnson excelled in English and 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 admitted to the prestigious Eton Society , colloquially known as 'Pop'.
* Upon finishing his time at Eton, Johnson went on a gap year to Australia, where he taught English and Latin.
* Johnson entered into a relationship with Allegra Mostyn-Owen, daughter of the art historian William Mostyn-Owen , and they became engaged while at university.
* Johnson was popular and well known at Oxford. With Guppy, he co-edited the university's satirical magazine Tributary.
* In 1984, Johnson was elected secretary of the Oxford Union, before campaigning for the position of Union president, losing the election to Neil Sherlock.
* In 1986, Johnson ran for president again, aided by undergraduate Frank Luntz ; his campaign focused on reaching out from his established upper-class support base by emphasising his persona and downplaying his Conservative connections.
* Johnson won the election and was appointed president.
* Johnson graduated from Oxford with an upper second-class degree, but was deeply disappointed not to achieve a first class degree.
* In February 1990, Johnson's wife left him; after several attempts at reconciliation, they divorced in April 1993.
* He entered a relationship with a childhood friend, Marina Wheeler, who had moved to Brussels in 1990.
* In May 1993, they married at Horsham , Sussex, and Wheeler gave birth to a daughter soon after.
* 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. 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 divorce proceedings.
* Johnson's current girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, is the daughter of Matthew Symonds, a co-founder of The Independent newspaper, and Josephine Mcaffee, a lawyer.
* In June 2019, Johnson said that he painted 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 using cocaine.
* Although baptised a Catholic and later confirmed into the Church of England, [47] Johnson has stated that "his faith comes and goes" and that he is not a serious practising Christian.
* Boris Johnson's shot to fame was the Brexit campaign. He was the face of the 2016 Brexit referendum, which he won with the votes of 92,153 members of the Conservative party, to 46,656 for his rival, Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
* Boris Johnson has courted several controversies during his career in the past. His competing statements on homosexual rights, his absence from the city during London Riots in 2011 and his change in stand on the allocation of Brexit funds to the National Health Service has kept people of the UK skeptical about him.
* Even as he was considered more liberal than many Tories, Boris Johnson's stand on homosexuality has flip-flopped. As a journalist, he had questioned the repeal of laws banning the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities. But as an MP, he changed tack and said the state should not interfere in people's lives. He also voted in the favour of civil partnerships.
* Boris Johnson’s decision not to cut short his holiday in Canada to deal with riots in London, when he was the mayor is also fresh in the internet’s memory. In his recent speech, Boris Johnson claimed that he took this city through riots in 2011. His statement drew sharp reactions from public, which reminded him that he was missing for three days, refusing to come back to help deal with the mass civil disturbance.
* The EU funds and their allocation has also been a point of contention when it comes to Boris Johnson. During the 2016 campaign, Boris Johnson led with the message that NHS, UK’s free medical care, should get £350 million a week sent to the EU after the Brexit (The government data said the fund was £285 million a week). After the Brexit voting, Boris Johnson said that NHS will be among several beneficiaries of the EU fund reallocation.
* The new UK PM has pledged to negotiate a new Brexit deal with the European Union before October 31. But if the bloc refuses, as it insists it will, he has promised to leave anyway.
* Boris Johnson's time as British Prime Minister, and his party’s future now depends on if he will be able to pull the UK out of the European Union within the next 110 days.
* After Theresa May had won the leadership seat, she appointed Johnson Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. He served in this position for two years
* In February 2015, he announced his intention to give up US citizenship to demonstrate his loyalty to the UK. In 2016 he renounced his US citizenship.
* 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.
* Boris Johnson had once referred to black people as "piccaninnies" with "watermelon smiles". He later apologized.
There's a whole lot to read about the new PM. You can visit this wikilink... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson ...and read all there is on him.
All hail "piccaninnies and watermelon smiles" boss!!
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