Boris Johnson is also threatened with losing his position as prime minister if his parliamentary group votes negatively on Monday evening. In the past, lies have cost the 57-year-old his job or office – this time too?
“Some say you are a cat with seven lives. How many do you have left?” a journalist recently asked Boris Johnson. Now the British Prime Minister may already be near the end of his political career: Because of his role in the “Partygate” affair, Johnson has to face a no-confidence vote from his own Tory group on Monday evening.
Johnson is under increasing pressure because of the affair about illegal parties at the seat of government during the corona lockdown. He was branded a lawbreaker and fined by the police – and an inquiry into Downing Street partying excesses came to a devastating conclusion for Johnson.
In polls, the British are increasingly questioning Johnson’s leadership skills. A clear majority now takes the view that the prime minister lied about Partygate and should resign. More and more MPs from his Conservative Party are also wondering whether the next elections can still be won with the 57-year-old at the helm.
Boris Johnson has apologized repeatedly – with many questionable explanations. So far, resigning has not been an option for him. He recently said that he was “absolutely” convinced that he would still be at the head of government in six months. It is quite possible that this self-confidence and his audacity will save him again now.
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson is a stand-up man, lying has never been a problem for him if it benefits him. According to his sister Rachel, even as a child he wanted to be “king of the world”. As a schoolboy, he received a scholarship to the elite Eton school and later went to Oxford University to study Greek and Roman history.
Even then he displayed many of the qualities he is known for – not just the flashes of rhetoric that made him an entertaining if often controversial journalist and politician. In 1982, for example, one of his teachers at Eton complained in a letter to his father about Johnson’s “disgracefully cavalier attitude” towards his studies. “I think he just thinks it’s petty of us not to see him as an exception, someone who should be free from all the duties of others,” the teacher wrote, according to biographer Andrew Gimson.
After graduating, Johnson first became a journalist. However, the Times fired him after a year for falsifying a quote. From 1989 to 1994, the son of an EU official made fun of the EU as the Brussels correspondent for the “Daily Telegraph” – and even then he wasn’t too particular about the truth. Disgruntled colleagues sometimes described his weird stories as “complete nonsense”.
Johnson began his political career in 2001 as an MP. By then he was already a celebrity for his performances as an eccentric upper-class figure on a satirical show. As an MP, he became a member of the shadow cabinet, but quickly lost his post for lying about an extramarital affair.
Nonetheless, Johnson was elected Mayor of London in 2008 and 2012. He later returned to the House of Commons as an MP. His last-minute decision in 2016 to support the Brexit campaign is seen as a turning point in the UK’s exit bid. In the summer of 2019, he succeeded the hapless Prime Minister Theresa May and pushed Brexit through parliament after new elections.
Political experts blame his exuberant rhetoric for part of his success, which likes to appeal to emotions but is rarely based on facts. Johnson’s former Telegraph boss, Max Hastings, called him a witty storyteller.
At the same time, however, Hastings thought little of Johnson’s abilities to hold state office, since he was obviously only interested in his “own glory and satisfaction”. Whether Johnson’s group shares this view will be seen on Monday evening.
